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Volunteer Events to Commemorate 9/11

September 8, 2011 By
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What better way to remember 9/11 then through giving service to others? There are numerous volunteer events happening around the Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area to commemorate the 10-year anniversary.9/11 Day of Remembrance

If you’re looking for an event near you, a good place to start is the 911 Day organization’s event locator. Just put your zip code in the box at the top right hand corner, and you will get a list of events taking place near you.

The 911 Day group was started in 2002 by two men — one lost his brother in the Twin Towers — as a way to commemorate 9/11 as a national day of service. This year the group is encouraging citizens to join the 9/11 Tribute Movement, by posting their intentions to help others  this Sunday.

Are you going to volunteer to commemorate 9/11? Tell  us about it in comments!

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Remembering 9/11 Heroes: Ultimate Good Neighbors

September 8, 2011 By
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If you’re like me, there’s a part of you looking forward to September 12. Ten years after 9/11, it’s still painful to remember what happened that day. All the retrospectives going on at the moment are a little hard to face.

9/11 Memorial

By Vincent Desjardin

But I find I can’t stop thinking about the heroes, the ultimate Good Neighbors. To this day I am still struck by the people who, in the blink of an eye, ran inside buildings that were about to crumble. Or the complete strangers that banded together to bring down a plane before terrorists reached their intended target.

Thousands of ordinary people, who when faced with colossal sacrifice, gave of themselves for the sake of rescuing and helping others on that day, and in the weeks and months that followed.

Or the thousands of people in communities across the country who without much fanfare have reached out to help in small ways, either by donating money, or just reaching out to those near and far impacted by the events.

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Raise Your Fork To End Hunger

September 6, 2011 By
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It’s Hunger Action Month across the country, as food banks and organizations focused on ending hunger seek to raise public awareness of this critical"Raise Your Fork" to end hunger. issue. Here in the Silicon Valley, Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties is encouraging everyone “Raise Your Fork” to take positive action every day of the month to end hunger.

A “30 Ways in 30 Days” calendar provides tangible ways to end hunger, from following Second Harvest online (Oracle is giving a $5 donation for each “like” and follow), to finding out how to organize a “CANstruction” event at work, to donating directly to the charity. According to its website, Second Harvest is feeding 1 in 10 people in the two counties, a noble task that takes cash and plenty of food donations from those of us who have plenty of food in our pantries.

Check out the calendar, and see if you can take at least some of the actions suggested there this month.

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Help The 93 Dollar Club Win A Do Something Award

July 12, 2011 By
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Carolee Hazard of Menlo Park is up for a VH1 Do Something Award, which recognizes people around the country who have made a difference in their communities. As has become popular these days, the public is invited to vote among a number of nominees to see who actually gets an award. The winners will be revealed at a taping of the Do Something Awards Show on Aug. 14 at the Hollywood Palladium, to be aired Aug. 18.

You may have heard of the 93 Dollar Club, a sort of viral local charity. It was started in 2009 by Hazard after she paid for a stranded stranger’s groceries worth $207 at Trader Joe’s, letting the woman know she could mail Hazard a check later. [Read more…]

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Happy Fourth of July!

July 4, 2011 By
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Five Ways To Be A Good Neighbor In June

June 2, 2011 By
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1) Celebrate National Doughnut Day, June 3: Who doesn’t love doughnuts? Tomorrow is National Doughnut Day, to commemorate the Salvation Army “Lassies”, young women who made and handed out fresh doughnuts to American soldiers in Europe during both World Wars. When soldiers returned home they craved the sweet treats, and the rest of America was introduced to the doughnut. Consider dough-nating (sorry) to the Salvation Army, which right now is front-and-center in Joplin, MO., helping survivors of deadly tornados. You can donate online, or text DONUT or JOPLIN to 80888 to make a $10 donation.

2) Share Your Lunch: Officials at Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties predict that 1 in 5 kids will go hungry this summer while school is out. Kids that normally qualify for free lunches at school have few options during summer vacation. The food bank is looking for people and organizations to host food drives during June, to stock up on needed items for distribution around the two counties. You can participate in a virtual food drive by donating money online. [Read more…]

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Beautiful Day: Retired Cops Out to Change Lives in Alviso Find Their Own Lives Changed

May 28, 2011 By
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Retired police officers Bob Froese and Jim Buchanan once looked upon the small low-income San Jose area of Alviso with hardened cops’

Jim Buchanan (left) and Bob Froese

eyes: a place with a few rough characters, and all the social ills that come with being a neighborhood of people living on the margins of society.

But recently, when the two found themselves leading possibly one of the largest community service projects ever in Alviso, their hearts melted and they began to see the neighborhood with softer eyes.

“After our experience here we have a passion for the people of Alviso,” Froese said. He said the stereotypes he once held for the community have completely disappeared. “Our opinions have been changed 180 degrees. We have a deep love and affection for the people now.”

With all the precision of a major police operation, the two marshaled the forces of 600 volunteers last weekend for the “Awaken Alviso” project, one of 17 projects worked on May 16-22 by a San Jose coalition of churches, nonprofits, businesses and governmental agencies called Beautiful Day. [Read more…]

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A Beautiful Day in San Jose

May 24, 2011 By
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In the midst of the darkness of San Jose’s fiscal state of emergency as declared by Mayor Chuck Reed, a bright day dawned last week for more than a dozen neighborhoods and thousands of the city’s residents thanks to a coalition of public, private, nonprofit and faith-based interests.

Approximately 2,400 volunteers from the coalition Beautiful Day went to work from May 16-22 doing everything from donating blood to hosting a prom for disabled youth, to fixing up schools and dozens of homes throughout the city.
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Hey Silicon Valley, Got Some Time to Help Your Community This Weekend?

May 20, 2011 By
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If you’re still making weekend plans, there are some excellent options for making a difference in your community here in the Silicon Valley. 

Beautiful Day is sponsoring numerous projects around the valley this weekend, and volunteers are still needed. Some of the important tasks the group is tackling include doing repair and cleanup work at sites like a local school, a homeless encampment, transitional housing, and individual homes. There’s a blood drive on Sunday at Westgate Church, which by the way, spearheads the coalition of nonprofit and government agencies that make up Beautiful Day.

Saturday is National River Cleanup Day, and there are a bevy of project sites that are still looking for volunteers. Check out the site for the cleanup project nearest you, and contact the site coordinator to signup.

 

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Drive Less, Silicon Valley!

April 22, 2011 By
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Just in time for Earth Day comes a great two-week challenge to drive less miles around the valley. The Drive Less Challenge initiative launched two years ago in Menlo Park, and has now expanded to 13 cities on the Peninsula and around the South Bay.

Check out the Patch story for more information, and be sure to visit the Drive Less Challenge website. The site features handy trip planners for walking, biking or taking transit. Registered participants can win prizes from local merchants for their efforts to cut down the amount of driving they do from today through May 5.

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