Versatile HELP serves Ojai Valley
When Rena Lewis fell on hard times a few years ago, HELP of Ojai stepped right in.
The little nonprofit that could helped the former psychotherapist, 58, meet utility and housing costs. It helped her deal with a chronic immune disorder that has left her unable to work for the last eight years.
It is still helping. Just before Thanksgiving, Lewis was among 160 Ojai Valley families invited to stuff a grocery bag with donated food, an event organized by HELP and students from the local public high school. She selected cranberries, canned oranges, Stove Top stuffing and a 15-pound frozen turkey.
Not a lot, but enough to create a festive meal.
“I’m cooking for myself,” Lewis said. “But people stop by and it’s nice to be able to offer them something.”
Now, HELP has moved into high gear for the holiday season. With the organization’s assistance, 100 Ojai-area families have “adopted” poor families for the holidays. They recently dropped off baskets of food and wrapped gifts for each adopted family member. HELP has scheduled food distributions and holiday activities before the end of the year.
This is nothing new for HELP. For more than three decades, it has been aiding needy families and seniors in the Ojai Valley, and doing it on a shoestring.
Operating on a $1.4-million annual budget, HELP provides more than 50 programs, serving 9,000 individuals each year.
Most programs are free or charge small fees based on a sliding scale. HELP received $25,000 from the Times Holiday Campaign this year.
The private agency’s dedicated volunteer corps, some 800 strong, allows it to stretch dollars by handling duties as diverse as serving hot lunches and helping the elderly find cheap medicines online. HELP’s primary mission is to serve needy seniors, but it has broadened over the years to include families and individuals facing hard times.
“It’s a little bit of everything,” said Executive Director J.R. Jones. “Rental help, aiding the homeless, bereavement counseling for students.”
HELP has been so successful that in 2005 it was outgrowing its headquarters at Little House in Ojai. Its board of directors began looking to move.
Good fortune arrived when Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett floated the idea of leasing an abandoned women’s jail and grounds to the social services agency.
The sprawling rustic space, about eight miles south of Ojai, had once been the site of a working farm for low-level offenders. Budget cuts had prompted the sheriff to close it.
HELP’s board of directors agreed to the sweet deal offered by the county Board of Supervisors: In return for a 35-year lease for $100 a year, the agency agreed to transform jail cells into classrooms, renovate administrative offices and offer the community meeting space and programs.
Scores of volunteers came forward to prepare the 42-acre facility, spending weekends landscaping, painting and renovating its eclectic mix of buildings.
“People are donating their time and talents to make this a community asset,” said Lisa Meeker, HELP’s director of development.
That ethos was present during a recent visit to Little House, a funky former home that has been expanded over the years to serve as the group’s headquarters.
Staff and volunteers there are helping seniors process utility bills. Others are taking classes or enjoying a hot lunch in a dining room. Volunteer drivers were loading elderly clients into one of several vans HELP uses to ferry people around town.
On the same day across town, HELP staff and student volunteers at Nordhoff High School were staging the annual holiday brown bag event that Rena Lewis attended.
“They are there when I need them.” Lewis said. “It’s just great.”
catherine.saillant@latimes.com
The annual Holiday Campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund, a fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which this year will match every dollar raised at 50 cents on the dollar.
Donations are tax deductible. For more information, call (213) 237-5771. To make credit card donations, visit www.latimes.com/ holidaycampaign. To send checks, use the attached coupon. Do not send cash. Unless requested otherwise, gifts of $50 or more are acknowledged in The Times.
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