Many Reach Out in Christmas Goodwill

Christmas goodwill kicked into high gear across Ventura County on Friday, with residents from Thousand Oaks to Ventura offering holiday dinners, food baskets and shelter from the cold to the county’s poor.

Three temples in the Conejo Valley will host a dinner for 2,500 people on Christmas Day. The Conejo Community Holiday Dinner will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the cafeteria at Thousand Oaks High School.

Organizers put together the dinner as a way to repay the community for helping Temple Adat Elohim rebuild a section of roof burned in a $25,000 arson in 1991.

Volunteers from three area high schools, churches and Jewish youth groups will help prepare and serve the meal.

At the Rescue Mission in Oxnard, about 200 people are expected to feast on ham, potatoes, vegetables and a dessert for a holiday dinner that starts at noon today. A Christmas Day dinner will also start at noon, organizers said.

The mission is at 234 E. 6th St.

Baskets of food and toys for needy families have been handed out in several communities as the holidays draw near. The Salvation Army distributed at least 500 baskets filled with turkeys, canned food and toys to families in Ventura, Oxnard and Port Hueneme, officials said.

And Food Share collected 50 turkeys and more than 30,000 cans of food in recent weeks, said coordinator Dan Williams. Those donations will help feed hungry families at Christmas, he said.

“We made it seemingly one can and one turkey at a time,” he said. “As soon as the (food) came in, we sent them to an agency preparing Christmas baskets.”

Ventura County’s homeless will also benefit from the holiday spirit. The Red Cross said Friday it will keep its emergency shelter in Oxnard open from 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve until 6:30 a.m. the day after Christmas.

The shelter normally closes during daytime hours. But donations by community members and volunteers will allow it to remain open all day Christmas, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner to about 100 homeless people, said spokesman Richard Rink.

Volunteers have decorated the shelter with holiday decorations and have donated toys for homeless children who will spend Christmas at the shelter, Rink said. The warming shelter is in the National Guard Armory at 351 S. K St.