EAST PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA – October 20: Leonora Martinez provides her son Austin, 18, a hand therapeutic massage at their East Palo Alto dwelling on Oct. 20, 2021. Austin can barely transfer and has bother talking since a motorcycle accident in 2017. (Dai Sugano/Bay Space Information Group)
Regardless of the uncertainties surrounding the unrelenting COVID-19 pandemic, Want Guide readers stay steadfast of their help for Bay Space nonprofits and the individuals they serve. Readers donated greater than $903,000 to the Mercury Information’ vacation giving marketing campaign, supporting a various group of worthy causes — many which might be struggling to recuperate from the pandemic.
“The Want Guide marketing campaign is among the most necessary issues we do yearly,” Bay Space Information Group Writer Sharon Ryan mentioned. “As soon as once more, the highly effective storytelling of our award-winning journalists joined forces with the generosity of our neighborhood to attain this sensational end result.”
Greater than 2,100 individuals donated to the marketing campaign this 12 months, and that generosity may have ripple results all through the area — serving to no less than 50,000 individuals served by South Bay nonprofits and doubtlessly many, many extra. Want Guide and its companion program within the East Bay, Share the Spirit, raised greater than $1.4 million mixed, the second consecutive 12 months their totals have topped $1 million, marking a far increased stage of donor generosity than previous to the pandemic.
Among the many beneficiaries is Leonora Martinez, who lastly will be capable to draw an actual tub for her teenage son, Austin, who was disabled following a 2017 bicycle accident. Leisa Preston, director of East Palo Alto-based Ecumenical Starvation Program, requested Want Guide readers to assist Martinez in a manner the nonprofit couldn’t by offering $25,000 in funds to construct the household a rest room that may accommodate Austin’s wheelchair in addition to a particular bathtub for the 6-foot-1 inch, 250-pound younger man.
Readers responded in an enormous option to the story, informed by Bay Space Information Group reporter Julia Prodis Sulek and photographer by Dai Sugano. “A number of issues have occurred to this household, however I really feel we’re resilient,” Martinez mentioned within the article. “We’re doing the very best we will with what God gave us.”
And now, they’ll be capable to perform a little higher.
Readers additionally have been moved by tales about First Place for Youth, a nonprofit that gives housing for younger individuals transitioning out of foster care; the Homeless Backyard Undertaking in Santa Cruz; and the Los Gatos-based Youth Science Institute.
YSI Government Director Erika Buck says the $25,000 from Want Guide readers will assist applications like its new “Science Saturday” at Alum Rock Park in San Jose. Proper now, it reaches about 66 at-risk and low-income college students, however YSI desires to develop its scholarship program to serve 288 children.
“Youth Science Institute is grateful to the members of the neighborhood for his or her generosity and to the Want Guide for making this potential,” she mentioned. “Because of this, we can encourage extra academically at-risk kids from low-income communities by offering hands-on, nature-based science teaching programs.”
For Stay Oak Grownup Day Companies, which has struggled by means of the COVID-19 pandemic with workers shortages whereas additionally making an attempt to serve aged purchasers at three amenities in Santa Clara County, the objective isn’t a lot about growth however bouncing again to its pre-pandemic ranges. It misplaced staff to retirement and different jobs through the disaster, and has nonetheless been unable to rent sufficient employees to reopen its heart in Los Gatos.
However Government Director Ann Peterson is optimistic that when issues cool down health-wise, they’ll be capable to convey many companies again. And the $20,000 want that was fulfilled by Want Guide readers can be a part of that effort.
“This 12 months, we’re making an attempt to ramp up, however we’re not in a position to absorb as many purchasers as we’d like,” she mentioned, including that 45 households are on a wait record. “We are able to’t serve them as a result of we don’t have sufficient workers. We’re actually banking on funds from Want Guide to assist.”
The Want Guide program was launched in 1983 as a manner for the larger San Jose neighborhood to shine a light-weight on the tales of the much less lucky amongst our neighbors and supply a manner for readers to assist them obtain higher lives. Tax-deductible donations are accepted year-round at wishbook.mercurynews.com.
The Bay Space Information Group’s East Bay program, Share the Spirit, had a file 12 months in 2021. It raised $535,722, which was a large improve over final 12 months’s whole. Share the Spirit will use the funds to assist organizations together with Livermore-based Open Coronary heart Kitchen, Choices Restoration Programs in Richmond and the Rainbow Group Middle of Contra Costa County.
San Jose resident Bonnie House is a reader who believes she hasn’t missed a 12 months donating to the Want Guide marketing campaign. “Who wouldn’t wish to grant a want for a deserving individual? Most of us can solely grant little needs, and it delights us to shock individuals by giving them their coronary heart’s want,” she mentioned. “However to grant an enormous want? That takes all of us. When the needs are as rigorously researched because the Mercury Information Want Guide tales are, I really feel assured that the donations can be used prudently and in one of the best ways potential.”
12 months after 12 months, she says, she donated within the reminiscence of Holly Hayes, who was the Mercury Information’ Want Guide coordinator for a number of years earlier than her dying from most cancers in 2010. She fulfilled the ultimate “want” of the 2009 season simply days earlier than she handed away.
“She didn’t overlook the individuals of San Jose,” Dwelling mentioned, “and I don’t wish to overlook her.”
HOW TO GIVE
Donate at wishbook.mercurynews.com.
ONLINE EXTRA
Learn different Want Guide tales, view pictures and video at wishbook.mercurynews.com.