Another Holiday Letter

Volunteer News | December 29, 2022

Holiday Greetings from the CRC Volunteer Family!

Dear CRC Volunteer,

2022 has been an exciting and full year! CRC is embarking on a capital campaign to finance a new Food Pantry and upgraded office buildings. Volunteers have provided support for that by committee involvement, behind-the-scenes admin help and being part of our October Community Celebration.

Volunteers kept our Food Pantry open and provided much-needed grocery support to hundreds of our neighbors this year and were part of record-breaking sales months at our resale stores!

Volunteers continue to ride along with our truck drivers to pick up food donations, stuff envelopes, serve on our Board of Directors, intern with our DV, Counseling and Data/IT staff, and support events.

December saw our 40th Holiday Baskets program successfully implemented as well as a festive and moving Jingle and Mingle Fundraiser.

As with many families, this month we even saw college students come home for the holidays and jump back into volunteering for the short time they are here (it was so great to see them!).

The CRC Volunteer family is made up of ages 8-98. From students, to parents, to professionals to retirees. We have former mayors on our volunteer team, prominent business owners, multiple faith and community service organizations, and those of diverse creeds, cultures, demographics and experiences. Our differences make us richer and our common care for our neighbors in need make us a force of change in our community.

Thank you for being part of our family.

Happy Holidays!

Sara Rosenbaum, CVA

CRC Volunteer Manager (and person who doesn't do a holiday letter for her own family....)

Volunteer News

CRC's 40th Holiday Baskets Program is a wrap!

We were able to provide a shopping experience at Target as well as at our Resale Stores (baskets), bags of essentials for local seniors, and backpacks for our unsheltered clients.

Volunteers also headed down to our partners at Feeding America to pack the produce bags we handed out at the Target shopping day. Thank you to the nearly 300 volunteers who came out in many capacities this month to support this wonderful program!

Volunteers who participated in the "Baskets" component of Holiday Baskets, showed up before sunrise to prepare for CRC families coming to shop at Target, and to receive blankets, personal care items, pet items and produce. It was cold out, but hearts were warm! Clients could also shop at our resale stores using vouchers, so volunteers and staff were on hand to greet them before regular opening hours.

Thank you all!

Watch the recap video here!

Over 200 Senior Bags were packed and delivered by the community to make the holidays a bit warmer for our over-65 neighbors.

Thank you to all the donors and item-sorters, bag packers, and captains Anne Fujioka and Kelly Harrington for making it happen!

The 2nd Street breezeway was transformed on December 14th into a festive spot for our unsheltered clients to pick up packed backpacks, a warm drink and yummy breakfast. Thank you to volunteer captains Anitra Glover and Letitia Fleming (a mom-daughter team)!

Jingle and Mingle

Thank you to the volunteers who came out to support our Jingle and Mingle Fundraiser on December 6th! We loved that you brought the holiday cheer as both guests and as volunteers! The event was held at Morgan Run golf course and included a silent auction, the opportunity to hear from CEO John Van Cleef and former DV participant Carol, and to be reminded of the valuable work we do. All while enjoying delicious food and great company.

Family Time

We had a lot of family teams come out to volunteer at the Food Pantry this month to help fill in gaps created by the cold/flu season and vacations. Even our interim Food and Nutrition Manager, Ann Clark was out with her husband and two kids to unload and sort donations on December 23rd. We can't think of many better ways to have family time than by giving back to others!

Volunteers of the Month

Congratulations to CRC's Volunteers of the Month, Anastacia Grenda, Wendy Rees and Kathy Ling! These amazing ladies were the "Shopping Experience" Captains for our Holiday Baskets program this year.

Cathie Byrd, the HB Project Coordinator writes: "Anastacia and Wendy are incredible and enthusiastic Holiday Baskets leaders. Their leadership during the development process and facilitation of HB22 was absolutely essential to its success. Kathy created the donation tracking process for this year, supported Sara with volunteer check in, and worked closely with Anastacia and Wendy on logistics and trainings."

These three were an integral part of the leadership team that made Holiday Baskets such a smooth and successful program for 2022.

Read more about their roles and volunteer experience.

If you have a good story of volunteering, please share with me at srosenbaum@crcncc.org. I can include those stories in future newsletters as an encouragement to our team.

If you know of anyone in need of food, housing or shelter, please pass along this link to information on how we can help: crcncc.org/integrative-services/

Community Resource Center

(760) 230-6501| info@crcncc.org | CRCNCC.org