Making a Difference in Your Community : Host Homes Sought for Holiday Cheer
For more than 100 developmentally disabled San Fernando Valley residents, a chance to spend the upcoming holiday with a home-cooked meal and a little conversation would be reason enough to give thanks.
The United Cerebral Palsy/Spastic Children’s Foundation is asking Valley residents to invite developmentally disabled clients to their homes for Thanksgiving dinner. The dinners don’t have to be offered Thanksgiving day, said Sharon Collins, the foundation’s development director.
“We have a lot of clients who don’t have any family,” Collins said. “They would be thrilled to go anytime during the holidays.”
The foundation has about 110 adult residential clients and works with about 350 families with disabled children, Collins said.
Many families affiliated with the foundation are strapped with economic restraints because of medication costs and training for their children. “Some of them don’t even have enough money to buy clothes,” she said.
The foundation needs clothes, recreational equipment, canned and dried food to give families and individuals.
Volunteers are welcome to serve dinner at one of the residential facilities. But Collins hopes that most of the foundation’s clients will have a home-cooked holiday meal with hosts and a staff worker who will accompany the disabled person to the dinner.
“They (the clients) like it because they’re being treated like real people. They like it because they’re very social,” she said. “It’s very exciting for them.”
It’s also a learning experience for the hosts. “Most people are very, very moved,” Collins said.
For more information call Collins at (818) 782-2211 or the Volunteer Center of San Fernando at (818) 908-5066.
The Lancaster Community Shelter needs donations for the holidays and to help sustain the homeless shelter throughout the rest of the year. The 24-hour shelter, where the homeless come to escape the cold weather, is serving a turkey dinner Thanksgiving day. The shelter needs turkeys, grocery gift certificates, canned food, and fresh vegetables.
“Anything the community can bring in,” said Jerri Darr, administrative assistant. “We need canned goods desperately.”
The shelter provides a cot, hot shower and two hot meals--breakfast and dinner--at no cost to homeless people.
“During the cold weather we can get up to 90 people a night,” Darr said. That means serving 180 meals a day.
The shelter can also use donations of regular or travel-size hygiene products--deodorant soap, shampoo, toothpaste and razors.
Call the shelter at (805) 945-7524.
Project Angel Food will serve Thanksgiving dinners to 450 homebound AIDS patients and others with life-threatening illnesses, including 60 San Fernando Valley residents. The organization needs drivers to deliver meals on the holiday. Each volunteer is asked to commit about an hour to take meals to two or three homes.
Valley volunteers will pick up meals from a site in North Hollywood, said Jenny Sandonato, the project’s valley coordinator. To volunteer, call Sandonato at (213) 656-9615.
The H.E.L.P. Group needs donations for food baskets it will give to 60 families with emotionally disturbed or developmentally challenged children. Donations of cash, grocery gift certificates and canned goods are needed, said Patricia Harris, community affairs director for the Sherman Oaks-based organization. For more information, call Harris at (818) 779-5217.
Glendale Head Start Family Service Center needs donations of money, canned food, rice and beans for Thanksgiving food baskets, said Kelly Donaldson, client service coordinator. The baskets will go to about 200 low-income families in Glendale whose children are served by the Head Start program. The center also needs volunteers to help prepare the baskets. Contact Donaldson at (818) 552-2046.
Getting Involved is a weekly listing of volunteering opportunities. Please address prospective listings to Getting Involved, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Or fax them to (818) 772-3338.