Weekly Holiday Fund drive kicks off today Weekly Holiday Fund drive kicks off today (November 16, 2005)

Charitable drive helps dozens of local groups to improve local lives

by Sue Dremann

Whenever there is a challenge, Palo Alto residents find a way to meet it.

Whether it's saving Kepler's Books or helping a popular former grocery-store checker get off the streets, Palo Altans invest in people and institutions close to their hearts.

One of those institutions, the Palo Alto Weekly's Holiday Fund, is now in its 12th year. The Holiday Fund gives $1,000 to $9,000 grants to local nonprofit organizations, which help individuals, children, families and the elderly. Last year alone, more than 600 donors gave to the fund. With matching grants from the David and Lucile Packard and William and Flora Hewlett foundations, along with others, the fund reached nearly $240,000 and supported 36 nonprofit programs.

This year's goal is $300,000.

"Without the Weekly's Holiday Fund, the Early Childhood Mental Health Project wouldn't exist in Palo Alto," said Laurel Kloomok, project director for the Jewish Family and Children's Services/Parents Place Resource Center.

The program surveys at-risk children who, by age three, often have been expelled from preschool due to behavioral or social problems. Project staff help preschool teachers develop skills for appropriately identifying at-risk children, many of whom come from immigrant families.

Thanks to the $10,000 Holiday Fund grant, these children now have a 90 percent retention rate at the preschools, Kloomok said.

Last year's recipients also included the Cleo Elau Center, a counseling program in East Palo Alto that keeps teens out of gangs and away from drugs; Adolescent Counseling Services, an on-campus counseling program for middle- and high-school students in Palo Alto and Menlo Park; and the Friendly Visitors program at Lytton Gardens, which brings youth visitors to meet one-on-one with the elderly.

Palo Alto Weekly Publisher Bill Johnson urged the community to donate to the fund, to help meet the area's hidden challenges.

"The Midpeninsula has already responded generously to help victims of the tsunami, both hurricanes and the earthquake in Pakistan. We now hope they will dig deep to support the non-profits here at home who provide so many essential services to local children and families," Johnson said.

"Even small amounts help, particularly since the Packard and Hewlett foundations are matching the gifts of individuals, doubling the size of the donation" he said.

The fund kicks off today and concludes in mid-January.

A donation form is located on page 13 of today's paper. Donations can also be made online at www.PaloAltoOnline.com. Click on the link for Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund Drive.

The editorial on page 20 also provides more information.

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