Highlighting the good news that several organizations are spreading in our community

Friends of the Poor Walk is Saturday morning, while Make It Happen could use more volunteers

Okay, let’s ignore all the depressing headlines of the day and give a quick shout out to people who are doing things to help people in our community.

FRIENDS OF THE POOR WALK (Saturday morning)

This popular annual event sponsored by the Davis conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul will take place Saturday morning (Sept. 27), with registration beginning at 8 a.m. at the St. James Parish parking lot at 14th and B.

An all-volunteer organization, the Society’s mission is to establish a personal contact between its members and those who suffer and to bring to the latter the most efficacious and charitable aid possible. It brings together men and women of good will to work for the good of humanity in every community.

In the last year alone in Davis, the Society has helped 1,161 of our friends and neighbors with aid of nearly $150,000. Saturday’s annual walk is a key fundraiser in that effort.

Pledges can be made at the event or at davissvdp@gmail.com. The phone number for the Temporary Emergency Assistance Hotline is 530 979-4338.

MAKE IT HAPPEN FOR YOLO COUNTY

(I received the following note from a Davis mom about yet another worthy cause in our community that many of us might not have heard of.)

My son, a senior at Davis High School, joined me three weeks ago at the storage units for Make it Happen for Yolo County. We helped four foster youth college students that day, all referred by the UCD Guardian Scholar Program and moving into their first places on their own without the resources to furnish them.

At a set appointment, each student was able to pick out needed household items such as gently used furniture, new products for kitchen, bedroom and bath, and refurbished bikes (purchased from King High’s bike program). We then loaded the goods and helped each student move into their new homes. The day was many things - rewarding, fun and educational. I realized what happened to foster kids when they age out of the system and what a difference one group can make toward creating a stable living situation for them.

Only 3-4% of foster youths graduate with a four-year degree and most start college with minimal belongings. One of the other volunteers, a man in his early thirties, was wearing his UCD Guardian Scholar T-shirt from his time on campus. Make it Happen wasn’t formed then and he moved into an apartment his sophomore year with only three cardboard boxes. One he used as a desk, another to store his clothes, and he slept on a borrowed camping cot the entire year.

Make it Happen also helps with household furnishings for other underserved youth, including single parents, the homeless or those with mental health challenges.

The next week we met with homeless parents who were both 20 years old, with a baby aged nine months. Their social worker joined us and shared that they both had been in the foster or CPS system, had finally obtained an apartment, but had nothing but a bed to create a home. They were sweet and so appreciative. The mother was excited about the handmade quilt donated by a group of women from Clarksburg, and the father was zipping around on his new bike like a kid. He planned to use it to help find a new job, since they had no other transportation.

These experiences proved to me how valuable Make it Happen is to the community. Make it Happen is providing furnishings to over 65 under-resourced transition-aged youth this year, with less than 20 volunteers. Around 95% of donations go directly toward the young adults, and all those served live in Yolo County.

According to Jan Judson, the founder, If they had more volunteers and donations, the impact could be even greater.

Very few have heard of Make It Happen even though it serves such an important purpose.

Jan Judson can be reached at jan@mihyolo.org and the website is

https://www.mihyolo.org/

Reach me at bobdunning@thewaryone.com