Benefit Nov/Dec 06 (selected pages)

The Lifestyle of Giving Nov/Dec 06 $ 4.95

Season of Service Our guide to holiday volunteering

A New Light Looking eye-to-eye with the City’s homeless

Red Hot What we’ll be wearing when the firemen come

Plus: Joe Montana

scores for the Little Sisters • Alice Waters plants a garden for change • Magic Theatre’s Cinderella story

Richard Goldman

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These are selected pages from this issue of Benefit Magazine, and not necessarily shown in the same order as the printed version.

contents November/December 2006 volume 1, No. 2

106

Looking Up

< Word Masters p.94

In a unique photo project, Mara Murray and Joe Ramos present the City’s homeless in a brand new light.

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The Goldman Rule

By DoRIan aDaMs, PhotogRaPhs By MIChael hael sugRue

Richard Goldman, Benefit’s Philanthropist of the Year, has dedicated his life to philanthropy. The $125,000 Goldman Environmental Prize, now in its 17th year, is awarded annually to six grassroots environmental heroes and is the largest award of its kind in the world.

94

Conquest of the Word Masters

By DIana DunkelBeRgeR, PhotogRaPhs By anne nne haMeRsky

Pirates, time travelers, spies, monsters, and rocket scientists: San Francisco’s homegrown writing center, 826 Valencia, expands its empire coast to coast and to various cities in between.

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Ringers, Cookers, Handlers, and Stuffers

By BRIDgett novak

Our Guide to Holiday Volunteering: In the next two months, thousands of individuals and families will be volunteering at hundreds of nonprofits throughout the Bay Area. Will you be one of them? < Ringers p.100 On the Cover: Richard Goldman, photographed in the Presidio by Michael Sugrue

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contents Capoeira p.72

Focus 56

In every issue Editor’s Letter Publisher’s Letter Contributors Letters Calender Listings Philanthroscope

14 16 18 21 35 120 128

25 The Avenues of Giving Joe Montana—a great big brother for San Francisco’s Little Sisters of the Poor; Bookmarks: Animal rescue sites; Crystal Hayling on the state of health care; American Indian Films; Getting Going on Giving; Ruby Tourk back on the radio; and more.

Departments 45 Events Partying with purpose Some galas you attend to mingle with a celebrity or dance with a socialite. Certain fundraisers offer a chance to bid on a prized possession. And a handful award ceremonies offer the occasion to pay respect for those who do more.

53 Patrons Bella Farrow, Chip Conly, Zem Joaquin, Steven Rascher, Bonnie Spindler, Linda Harrison, Lisa Grotts

62 Food & Wine How Do You Like Them Parsnips?

Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Foundation is helping educate kids about food, health, and the environment. By Diana Dunkelberger. Also: A wine to fight breast cancer. By Pisha Wayne

68 Health & Beauty Blissful Moments Spa Radiance offers parents of ill children a well-deserved break. By Pisha Wayne

70 Art Conjuring Success The Magic Theatre proves that nonprofit longevity is not all smoke and mirrors. By Bonnie Wach

72 Energy Dancing with a Mission Capoeira Master Márcia Treidler on moving people and colliding cultures. By Tim Gaskin

76 Venue Slide Effects For nightclub owner George Karpaty, fundraising has become a slippery slope. By Bonnie Wach

80 Legal Charitable Giving 101 How to make year-end contributions easy and tax advantaged. By Lara Gilman and Katherine Ohlandt. Also: Charitable IRAs. By Deb Kinney and Susan von Herrmann

84 Volunteer The Jefferson Connection Former KPIX news anchor Kate Kelly shines a bright spotlight on public and community service in the Bay Area. By Bill Picture

85 Rights The Great Defenders From genocide in Darfur to violations in California’s foster care system, Human Rights Watch investigates and exposes human rights violations and holds abusers accountable. By Erik Vance Alice Waters p.62

112 Fashion Dressing for a Cuddly Cause Sacramento Street shops come to the rescue as Sydney and Devon shop for the San Francisco Firefighters Toy Program events. By Megan Papay, Photographs by Michelle Blioux

127 San Francisco Voice Kamala Harris City District Attorney gives meaning to justice … and justice for all. By Tim Gaskin

WHY DOES LAILA ALI W E A R T H E B RA C E L E T ?

She wears it to raise desperately needed funds for HIV/AIDS care services, education and vaccine development. Over half a million people have chosen to wear The Bracelet. What about you?

Available at: Kenneth Cole; Virgin Megastore; Ben Bridge Jewelers and other fine retailers. Or to order call 1-800-88-UNTIL or visit us at WWW.UNTIL.ORG.

© 2007 Until There’s A Cure Foundation Photo: Michael Collopy

Bill Marken EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

William Salit DESIGN DIRECTOR

MANAGING EDITOR COPY EDITOR ARTS AND EVENTS EDITOR ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS PRODUCTION COORDINATOR/GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Bonnie Monte Jean Sirius Brenda Leff Marsha H. Levine Alex Gecan, Anna Kirsch, Marianne Lipanovich, Ashley Nelson, Diana Nelson, Spencer Sherman, Robert Sokol, Laura Svienty, Leah D. Williams Drew Altizer, Saul Bromberger & Sandra Hoover, Robert Cardin, Carl Durocher, Lori Eanes, Salih Güler, Stephania Serena, Kim Steele, Mike Sugrue, Pete Thompson, Jack Valley, Heather Wiley Dan Page, Katherine Streeter, Gordon Studer Greer Ashman

PUBLISHING

Michael Earls PUBLISHER

Ralph Hyman ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

DIRECTOR OF SALES OFFICE MANAGER SALES COORDINATOR DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY EXECUTIVE PRODUCER/HOST, BENEFIT RADIO SPECIAL PROJECTS DIRECTOR ACCOUNTING INTERN FOUNDER/EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CO-FOUNDER

Jeanette Heinen Michon Sanders Marcia Flores Lindsay Chambers Leah D. Williams Sophie Azouaou Steve Vezeris Cara McLaughlin Paul Corso Dorian Adams

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Sophie Azouaou, Nancy Cole, Maryanne Comaroto, Marybeth La Motte, Claudia Ross, Fred Silverman, Leah D. Williams, Stu Zimmerman

BENEFIT MAGAZINE, INC. VOLUME 2 NUMBER 2

The Flood Building, 870 Market Street, Suite 776, San Francisco, CA 94102 415-433-2345 fax 415-433-1648 benefitmagazinesf.com For advertising information please write sales@benefitmagazinesf.com or call 415-433-2345 To subscribe go to: benefitmagazinesf.com Copyright © 2007 Benefit magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Benefit Magazine, The Lifestyle of Giving is a registered trademark of Benefit Magazine, Inc.

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Energy

By Tim Gaskin Photographs: Gates Houp

A conversation with Capoeira Mestranda Márcia Treidler

Dancing with a Mission

When cultures collide great things can happen. The story of Capoeira Master Márcia Treidler proves it.

Capoeira is a unique, Brazilian-based art form/ martial art combining dance, acrobatics, music, and, on an interesting day, combat. Its origins are a multi-faceted amalgamation of African cultures brought to South America during the slave trade, and are tinged with Portuguese and indigenous influences. And Treidler, to say the least, knows her stuff.

A Capoeira Mestranda, or Master, she has achieved unprecedented heights in this already lofty community. Of the more than forty thousand practitioners in ABADÁ (The Brazilian Association for the Support and Development of the Art of Capoeira) a mere ten of them are at the Mestrando level. Treidler is the first female student of Mestre Camisa, a major teacher of the art. There are currently two female mestrandas.

Because of her talent the U.S. Government granted her a “national interest waiver” as an “alien with extraordinary abilities,” making her a permanent resident of our country in 1997. Even before attaining her legal status, Treidler and her Brazilian Arts Center were a true gift to the Bay Area.

Dedicated to “preserving, developing, and sharing the art of Capoeira with integrity,” and using the art form as a “vehicle to improve and enrich disadvantaged communities and the lives of people from all backgrounds,” Treidler’s nonprofit Center is a beacon of artistic light in the city’s Mission District. Working to inspire and empower people—especially marginalized youth—to realize their full potential as confident, creative, produc-

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Energy tive members of society, she has touched thousands with her work. She recently took some time to speak with Benefit magazine Editorin-Chief Tim Gaskin:

What drew you to Capoeira for the first time? Since I was six I was involved in

Benefit: Tell us about your special nickname.

You smiled when you mentioned ballet. Why? [Laughs.] Because if you look at me today, it’s not really me. [Treidler is an athlete and does not match the typical profile of a ballerina.] But it’s something I did to help my gymnastic skills. Actually, it complemented my gymnastics because I wasn’t very graceful.

Treidler: Well, my name is Márcia Treidler, and my Capoeira name is Márcia Cigarra. A cigarra is a cicada, which is an insect that lives on a tree, like a beetle. It lives in a tropical place and when it’s very hot, it sings loud and strong. When you enter the Capoeira Batizado [a traditional Capoeira “baptism” ceremony during which new students are ini­tiated] the masters give you a nickname. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t. Mine makes sense even though I didn’t sing then.

I do now.

What is Capoeira? Capoeira is a Brazilian art

form, but African people and their descendants created it. When they were brought to Brazil as slaves, they came from different countries in Africa. Once in South America, the Portuguese tried to keep them weak by separating them from their tribes and breaking their families apart. But over the generations they shared their culture and art forms, their dance and their music. After the workday, the Portuguese allowed them to sing and dance in ceremonies. That’s how the African culture remained so strong. The dance aspect of Capoeira looks like dancing, but [practi­ tioners] can pull off a strong kick and even knock each other down. The fighting aspect is camouflaged by dance.

You use camouflage? Yes, as a way to practice the Capoeira. The slaves disguised combative movements with music, dance, and rituals.

That’s how it’s pieced together. And it has aspects from different places in Africa, creating a synchronization of different cultures and traditions. Some of the hand movements, for example, come from totally different tribes from Africa, as do other movements like sweeps.

Capoeira is so beautiful because it’s all mixed together. And even though it’s about 90 percent African-based it is also influenced by the Portuguese and by the indigenous people of Brazil. It has dance, acrobatics, music, some improvisation—it all flows and it’s very, very fun, while other martial arts can be stiff.

How do you see yourself relating to the African people as a Brazilian woman? In truth, true

Brazilians have all the three bloods, you know.

The Portuguese, the Brazilian indigenous, and the African. I do.

sports. I was very athletic. My mom always pushed that side of me to be healthy and to stay out of trouble with drugs. So I was really focused on all kinds of sports, like gymnastics and swimming. I even did ballet and modern dance

Why did you come to the United States? I moved here fourteen years ago, but first visited for different events at the invitation of the Capoeiristas as a guest artist. I came to help maybe two or three times. At first I was kind of isolated because I didn’t know anybody. And I was like, “Oh, it’s too cold there! I’m never going to live there! I like my sunny, hot Rio beach!”

Oh, a true “Carioca.” Yes. And when I first came, people

“ Because Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art, it of course complements and reflects Latin culture.”

didn’t seem very friendly. I thought Americans were so cold. But when I came again I met people and made friends. I was able to connect because where I come from people are so warm and, well, people are people.

Then I saw the potential for our style of the ABADÁ-Capoeira. It’s a unique philosophy and style—and focus.

Over here they were already developing a different form of Capoeira. So I thought, well, there’s room for us.

What is ABADÁ-Capoeira? The word itself [ABADÁ] is an

acronym for The Brazilian Association for the Support and Development of the Art of Capoeira. It’s actually Associaçâo Brasileira de Apoio e Desenvolvimento da Arte Capoeira. We’re all over the world in about twenty countries.

So this is the Brazilian Cultural Center, right? And it’s a nonprofit? Yes. We call it the Brazilian Arts Center, but through Capoeira we involve all kinds of different people, backgrounds, ages, and art forms.

How did you get the Center off the ground? When I moved here fourteen years ago, I was [an] illegal [immigrant]. So I wasn’t able to use my own name for legal purposes and operated under a friend’s name. [My friend] handled all the paperwork because I didn’t want my name out there. I began by working nights on the project as I was teaching Capoeira at Rhythm and Motion and working construction during the day. That’s how it was for the first three years.

Wait a minute. At nighttime you taught Capoeira—as the top ranked woman in the world, no less—while during the day you taught dance and worked your butt off doing construction? So, in essence, you worked to make money to indulge your talent and passion with little or no recognition? I was counting pennies to

teach here and I was new in the United States, too. I feel that for an artist to be recognized, [he or she] must be in one place for a while so the community can develop familiarity and respect for the work. After we had a good number of students, including Executive Director Jennifer Walsh and [longtime-student] Michael Schaffer and others, we started the process for my legalization. After about five years, and even before I was legal, we created ABADÁ-Capoeira San Francisco and the Brazilian Arts Center as an official nonprofit.

And your mission? Our mission focuses on two primary goals. First is serving

the community the best we can, including those who have no income [they pay nothing] or low income [who pay what they can]. Even for those who can afford

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Energy

our fee, which we must charge to keep our program accessible to everyone, pay nowhere near what would be a normal business charge.

The second aspect is education and quality. Our training gives young people and higher-level students the opportunity to develop and succeed in this art form, and the tools to become professionals. I have a few of [my students] who are now teaching. That’s definitely one of our goals.

Is there a focus on the Hispanic community? Well, yes, because

of our location [3221 22nd Street at Mission], a lot of our young people come from the Mission. We use Capoeira as a tool to improve disadvantaged communities. That’s where our work with low-income youth comes in. In fact, 75 percent of the 10,000 kids we served last year though our on-site and off-site programs were of Latino descent. We also have an extensive arts education outreach program to bring Capoeira to schools, hospitals, and public and private venues. And because Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art, it of course complements and reflects Latin culture.

Of course. What about mentoring? Do you find that you have fans and kids that look up to you? It’s hard for me to view it like

that, but I do see it happening. At all ages, in fact. I’m 40 and have 50-year-olds that look at me like I’m the mom, you know?

Anything I do can be inspiration—or not. Trying to be a good role model keeps me in check.

Do you feel now that you’re successful? I’m successful in that it was my goal to have a space to offer classes every day, and to have a performance group, and be respected in the field. But to have achieved all of this as a woman is extra special for me.

We now have so many women training and doing great work.

I also think I’ve helped males to take women in Capoeira seriously. It’s like, “Márcia, whoa! You’re definitely serious in what you’re doing and I have a lot of respect for you.” That for me is major.

Also, in terms of success, you have to remember I got legal through my work. Capoeira literally legalized me. Because of

it, I didn’t need to get married or lie. I proved to the I.N.S. that the work I was developing had value here in the United States.

It took three years but we made it because of the work, and because of tons of letters and support from the community.

Before you got a national interest waiver as an alien with extraordinary abilities, was it hard not to be able to return to Brazil to contribute and learn more about your art form? That was dev-

astating for me, especially when I got my title of Mestranda, because I couldn’t be [home] to receive it. The ceremony when they announced my title was a big event and twenty or so of my students were in Brazil. Even when I became legal and I was going to receive the honor on paper, my lawyer still advised me not to go back because anything could change at any moment.

“You waited this long,” he said. “You can wait a little bit longer and go next year.” But eventually I got there. I booked my ticket, stamped my passport, and went to visit my mom. It was the happiest day of my life. of her

Because talent the U.S. Government granted her a ‘national interest waiver’ as an ‘alien with extraordinary abilities’

What was the first thing your mom said to you? She was so proud of

me—and so happy because she was so upset when I left. At the time, she was like, “Don’t call me. I never want to see you again if you leave this house.” But I called her every month, anyway.

You’ve dedicated your life to this art form—and to this cultural center.

Your whole life is here. You’ve laid track, groundwork, and roots in the community. Why do you do it? I came into this world to do this. I don’t think anything

else could complete me more than Capoeira. It’s always a challenge, it’s never boring, and I still can learn. In the end, there’s no age limit for Capoeira. The older you get the better you get. It’s kind of unique that way. In the end, it’s just who I am. B

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Join us in making the holidays brighter for San Francisco kids and families.

Every year, Zephyr sponsors a holiday food and toy drive to benefit kids and families in need throughout our community.

This year, more than ever, we invite you to participate by bringing unwrapped new toys and non-perishable foods to any of our offices, November through December. Working together for our community is a wonderful gift.

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Art After 40 years, the Magic Theatre proves that nonprofit longevity is not all smoke and mirrors

By Bonnie Wach Photographs: Nick Shoob, Bill Faulkner

Conjuring Success It’s a Cinderella story if there ever was one.

In the summer of 1967, while the Vietnam War raged and the hippies danced in the Haight, a group of Cal drama grads, directed by an artistic maverick named John Lion, decided to launch a nonprofit theater dedicated to presenting new works. Operating on a frayed shoestring of a budget and with zero name recognition, they ended up performing to sell-out crowds in Berkeley bars, eventually becoming successful enough to move to a permanent home in a dilapidated warehouse on the San Francisco waterfront.

Into this drafty and improbable setting, Lion recruited the formidable playwriting talents first of renowned Beat poet Michael McClure and then of Sam Shepard. Devoted audiences, critical acclaim, and a Pulitzer Prize followed.

Forty years later, the pumpkin has become a golden carriage. San Francisco’s Magic Theatre is considered one of the premier venues

in the country for presenting new works, with a budget of over $2 million, a base of 1,500 subscribers, and a megawatt roster of actors, writers, and directors—John O’Keefe, Nilo Cruz, Elaine May, Charles Mee, Rebecca Gilman, and David Mamet among them—willing to sacrifice the big Broadway bucks for a chance to be a part of the Magic’s magic.

“For any nonprofit or arts organization— particularly one that focuses on the creation of new works—to survive 40 years is a miraculous testament to the passionate individuals who have shouldered the load,” says Artistic Director Chris Smith, who began his fourth season with the company this fall. “There have been huge troughs in the life of the Magic where the theater should have closed, but a board member or an artist stepped up and said, ‘Not on my watch.’”

Their achievement is all the more remarkable when you consider the obstacles and limitations: The Magic operates out of two

converted warehouses located on the third floor of a former army barracks, overlooking a windswept point on San Francisco’s northern waterfront. Just finding the theater can be challenging, but when you’re competing with foghorns, wind-tunnel acoustics, ventilation issues, and logistical problems that in the early years included inadequate heat and electricity, it’s nothing short of astonishing.

“One of our board members remembers sitting on folding chairs, watching a performance of Mamet’s American Buffalo, when the power went out,” recalls Marketing Director Evren Odcikin. “They refused to shut down and continued the play by candlelight.

She said it was one of best performances she’d ever seen.”

Much of the credit for the Magic’s success goes to the myriad talented artists who have left their imprint throughout its history—most notably Michael McClure and Sam Shepard.

McClure, a poet and a seminal figure of the

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Art Beat Generation, teamed up with Lion in 1969 for an 11-year run that brought him fame as a playwright and established the Magic as a force in American theater. In 1971, Lion produced La Turista, a work by a still relatively unknown Sam Shepard, who joined the organization as Playwright in Residence from 1975 to 1983. The relationship would garner Shep­ ard and the theater a number of prestigious accolades, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for Buried Child.

“Great artists bind to a great vision and a commitment of support,” explains Smith.

“We offered Sam something really significant—an artistic home and a commitment to present his work. Everyone knows he created his most significant works here and he won a Pulitzer. What many don’t know and acknowledge is that he created many plays that weren’t that successful here. That’s what’s so important about an artistic home. It’s a cauldron for artists to be able to experiment.”

Shepard has continued to produce plays at the Magic, returning in 2000 to premiere The Late Henry Moss with an all-star cast headed up by Nick Nolte and Sean Penn, and again this year with The God of Hell, directed by Amy Glazer.

While these high-profile alliances proved critical to the theater’s early survival, Smith stresses that the Magic’s continued longevity is also directly attributable to both audience and artistic loyalty, and the unswerving commitment of the Bay Area’s philanthropic community.

“It’s amazing how small the Magic is and yet how big its influence is,” he says. “That comes from great artists. In a 165-seat theater, a whole

week of performances doesn’t equate to one performance of Best of Broadway.

We’re not after the same thing. Most people in our economic environment need financial results to judge success. Within the philanthropic community, success is judged in cultural metrics, in things like enlightenment, transformation, and experience. On the experience meter, the Magic is huge.”

Odcikin estimates that 65 percent of the theater’s annual budget is raised through individual, foundation, and corporate giving, which not only allows the Magic to produce or co-produce eight shows a season and host the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, but to make vital capital improvements, and nurture emerging playwrights and new theatrical ventures.

Board President Missy Kirchner has been instrumental in wangling support for many of the practical undertakings, raising funds for much-needed renovations that will, in Smith’s words, “transform us from being a perpetual teenager into a sustainable institution.” Plans for the next couple of years include new theater seating and ventilation systems, the addition of a café/lounge where artists and audi“On the experience and ence members can interact.

Philanthropic giving has also made it possible for the meter, the Magic Magic to back a number of new nonprofit projects. The is huge.”

Sloan Initiative, subsidized by a $400,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, commissions, develops, and —Chris Smith produces new plays about science and technology. The New Works Initiative, supported by the Irvine and Columbia Foundations, partners the Magic with a small but prominent developmental theater company to produce new plays.

The Young California Writers Project puts professional playwrights in public schools for a 10-week mentoring program that results in students writing short plays which are presented at the Magic by professional artists in a staged reading.

“The Bay Area philanthropic community recognizes how essential it is to put resources toward the arts,” says Smith. “We don’t tithe to a greater organization that will take care of that for us. It’s incumbent upon enlightened individuals to strengthen the net and empower the arts.

“Back when John Lion formed the Magic, there was no sense of building an institution. He just had a burning desire to create art and to gather people around the bonfire. Did he think maybe in 40 years, we’ll need to put in a bar? Of course not. But there are many different ways to engage the cultural future of our community. Our job now is to expand the circle around those bonfires.” B

Magic Moments (left to right): Anne Darragh and John Flanagan in Sam Shepard’s The God of Hell (2006); Michael McClure’s award-winning play The Beard (1974) premiered at Magic Theatre; Kerry Butler and David Burtka in the world premiere musical The Opposite of Sex (2004) by Robert Jess Roth and Douglas J. Cohen; Ed Harris and Kathy Bates in Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love (1982); Julia Brothers and Marlo Thomas in Elaine May’s Moving Right Along, currently running at the Magic through November 18.

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Food & Wine Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Foundation is helping kids learn new values about food, the environment, and that it can be easy being green

By Diana Dunkelberger Photographs: Thomas Heinser

How Do You Like Them Parsnips?

In the summer of 1969, Alice Waters and a friend were traveling across the plains of central Anatolia in a tiny, beat-up Morris Minor. Waters had just completed her coursework at the Montessori Institute in London, where she was preparing to become a high school teacher. This trip to Turkey, along with the next year she would spend restaurant hopping in France, was to be her last hurrah before launching a lifelong career in education.

Things didn’t go exactly as planned. One evening, the traveling companions pitched their tent near a flock of goats. The next morning, Waters woke to find a small token of charity that changed her perspective forever.

“Somebody had put a bowl of fresh goat’s milk under the flap of our tent,” she recalls, sitting at a window table last month at her Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse. She remembers being deeply affected by this anonymous gift, as well as by the culinary savories she sampled in France. So she put her love of teaching on the back burner in favor of her passion for food and hospitality. She started in 1971 at a simmer, with $10,000 borrowed from her father (the Bank of America refused her application for a loan because she had no previous experience as a restaurant owner) and a plan to open a “simple, real food” restaurant for an intimate clientele of family and friends. It wasn’t long, however, before the simmer heated up to a rolling boil, with celebrity patrons from Bill Clinton to the Dalai Lama becoming regulars.

Chez Panisse, named after a character in a 1930s trilogy of movies by Marcel Pagnol, has become known for the quality of its ingredients,

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Food & Wine its dedication to paying farmers a living wage, and its celebration of seasonal fruits and vegetables. In addition to serving food with a distinctly French flair (for its 35th birthday on August 28 of this year, Waters served a classic Provençal fish and shellfish stew with saffron, wild fennel and rouille), the restaurant is also famous for its almost shocking simplicity. (Remarkably, dessert on the prix fixe menu was once a single peach.) The restaurant, now considered one of the nation’s finest, was recently rated by Michelin, the infamous French food rating system that has led at least one chef to commit suicide over rumors that he might be losing his ranking. Upon receiving only one out of a possible three stars, Waters said, “You know, I’ve always wanted a little one-star restaurant. When I was in France, they were the ones I loved the most.”

The “Queen of California Cuisine” is now settling into her fifties with the irreverent youthfulness of a Berkeley baby boomer. She has a petite figure, wears her dark hair in a pixie style, and delivers her words with unaffected precision and an easy-going smile. When she reflects on her travels in Turkey, she glances out the window. “We never saw who put the milk there,” she says, lifting an open palm in the air. “[It was probably] some shepherd out there with his goat herd, [but we] never saw that.” “ A lot of people It wasn’t until 1996 that Waters realized that she who come to didn’t have to choose between food and education, and she established the Chez Panisse Foundation, a eat at Chez nonprofit organization with the sole purpose of educating children about food, health and the environPanisse really ment. “We started [the foundation] largely out of concern that young people increasingly are isolated from understand the land and deprived of the joys and responsibilities it the relationship teaches,” Waters explains. “A lot of people who come to eat at Chez Panisse really understand the relationof agriculture ship of agriculture and culture. We wanted to offer them a way to contribute to projects that promote that and culture. understanding, especially among children.”

We wanted For the first course, Waters focused a discerning eye on an ugly, unused parking lot on the campus of Marto offer them tin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, not far from Chez Panisse. “The school didn’t look so good,” a way to Waters explained at a conference about school gardens. “In fact, it almost looked abandoned. I would contribute to see the graffiti on the windows and the burnt-out grass, projects that and I would wonder what happened. Who was using this school? Who was taking care of it?” promote that After a productive tête-à-tête with the school’s then principal, Neil Smith, Waters got the go-ahead to reunderstanding, pave the lot with 100 pounds of fresh compost and one acre’s worth of fruit trees, vegetables, herbs and ornaespecially mentals. Dubbed the “Edible Schoolyard,” this organic among garden became the outdoor counterpart to an indoor kitchen classroom that was converted from an unused children.” cafeteria. In the kitchen, students eat the fruits and veggies they sow, harvest, and bake themselves.

The Edible Schoolyard’s botany and culinary classes are no slacker electives. Rather, they’re fully integrated into the school’s traditional academic curriculum. Students learn about photosynthesis by observing plant leaves in the garden as well as by studying chemical formulas in their textbooks. In the indoor kitchen classroom, students discover the history and concept of food preservation during the Neolithic period, as they taste the very grains that have been harvested for millennia.

After getting their hands dirty in the garden and then cleaning them up for work in the kitchen, students record their observations in a journal. This

Sow Some Seeds to Help…

The Garden and Kitchen Wishlist • Organically grown seeds, seedlings, bulbs, and plants • A handyperson with tools and skills for small repairs and minor carpentry • A plumber to repair garden faucets • A lawn mower or weed cutter • Wood to fire the outdoor oven • Irrigation supplies: soaker hose, valves • Seedling flats • Rubber boots for students working in the garden • Garden clippers • Tool repair—wheelbarrow, hand tool, and irrigation equipment • Bales of straw for the outdoor classroom • A 35mm camera • A digital video camera • Knives—chef, serrated, and paring • Organic olive oil

Annual Spring Plant Sale Purchase vegetable starts, annual flowers, herbs, and perennials grown by King students at the annual Spring Plant Sale— this is a great way to support students’ work in the garden and launch your own garden with healthy affordable seedlings.

Community Garden Workdays Join ESY for seasonal Garden Workdays.

These weekend workdays involve students, staff, parents, and community members in garden care, as well as craft activities and sharing a delicious lunch from the garden. For this year’s Plant Sale dates, a calendar of upcoming Garden Workdays or to receive email announcements, please contact the ESY office at 510-558-1335 or info@edibleschoolyard.org

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Food & Wine

Fighting Breast Cancer: One Bottle of Wine at a Time To honor the memory of their mother, Hilary Newsom Callan and Gavin Newsom raise money for her caregivers Toasts to the future. The sweet aroma of well-bred grapes. Laughter shared among friends, new and old. The ritual of drinking wine is seldom sober.

Now, thanks to a couple of high-profile San Franciscans, sharing a bottle of Chardonnay can benefit more than your taste buds. Opening a bottle of Tessa’s Cuvee supports an entire community of breast cancer sufferers. The story of how a $12 wine can help battle breast cancer is both bittersweet and full of promises Hilary Newsom Callan’s life changed forever the day her mother, Tessa Newsom, told her she had breast cancer. “She told me she had been diagnosed with the disease and that it was quite advanced,” says Newsom Callan, the sister of San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom.

“Three years later, she left behind two grown children, her ex-husband, and many family members, none of whom will fully recover from her loss.”

Newsom Callan’s mother, Tessa, and mother-in-law, Barbara Callan, a breast cancer survivor, inspired Newsom Callan and her husband, Geoff Callan, to found the Plumpjack/LINK Golf Classic in 2000.

“We created the tournament when my mom was in remission,“ says Newsom Callan. “We were full of hope for her and others who were suffering. Unfortunately, here we are seven years later and she and so many others are not here to share the tournament’s success. It’s devastating when I get up on the podium every year and say, ‘I hope I don’t see any of you here next year.‘ Maybe that’s a pipe dream, maybe it isn’t. But it’s so important to know that each dollar is making a difference and that some day we’ll find a cure.”

Gearing up for its eighth annual tournament, the Plumpjack/LINK Golf Classic has raised more than $1 million for breast cancer research. The tournament proceeds go to the Northern California Cancer Center, which provides education, research and an improved quality of life to those suffering from cancer.

During her fight, Tessa Newsom also received invaluable care from the Stanford Cancer Supportive Care Program, which supplies innovative, holistic approaches to healing that complement Stanford’s cancer therapy. “The organization was in part started by my father and my mother’s oncologist, Dr. Ernie Rosenhall,” says Newsom Callan. “One of the things my mother said to our family before she passed was ‘I don’t want to be forgotten.’ And she wanted us to make a commitment to her doctor, who was such a lovely part of our family for many years.”

Here’s where uncorking a bottle of wine takes on new meaning. The commitment Newsom Callan made comes in the form of a bottle of Tessa’s Cuvee Chardonnay. The Plumpjack Group, the restaurant and wine company started by Mayor Newsom-and for which Newsom Callan serves as vice president-makes 40 cases each year.

When it’s time to choose a wine, help yourself to a good time while helping others do the good work necessary to defeat a terrible disease. —Pisha Wayne

exercise gives the kids a chance to process what they’ve done. The written track record also gives educators a better chance to monitor learning and development. Mati, a student at King, describes in her journal a hike through

the garden designed to nourish all five senses.

“I followed the directions and the cards,” she wrote. “Some of them said to taste and I tasted. And I really liked the Golden Raspberry.

I was hooked on them! I could not leave! I

Tessa’s Cuvee Chardonnay Produced from Russian River Chardonnay, Tessa’s Cuvee Chardonnay has an explosive nose of pineapple, ripe pears, and honeyed spices. On the palate, this bright, focused wine is satin-textured, medium bodied and complex. Its texture offers creamy flavors of orange blossom and passion fruit. The wine is very well balanced and would be a great pairing with rich shellfish like scallops, prawns, or lobster.

Rajat Parr, Wine Director Restaurant Michael Mina

saw some cards that said to smell stuff so I did.

I liked to smell the lavender.”

According to a two-year study of the Edible Schoolyard by J. Michael Murphy, an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical

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Food & Wine Medical School, this program is both shrinking students’ waistlines and increasing their understanding of food and the environment. Murphy observed that when middle school students in large urban communities are given the opportunity to learn about ecology in a real-world context, “they are more enthusiastic about attending school, make better grades, eat healthier food due to wiser food choices, and become more knowledgeable about natural processes.” Not only that, but the more students learn about the ecosystem, the more fruits and vegetables they’re likely to eat. “Teaching students about where food comes from and how it is prepared,” said Murphy, “may be an important contributor to overall diet change.”

Beyond the raw data is living proof that some students are willfully turning their attention from Cheetos to chickpeas. Given the staggering popularity of junk food, one might suppose that the success of the Edible Schoolyard does not depend upon kids’ naturally sophisticated palates or any sort of “hidden potential” as food connoisseurs that was tragically quashed the moment they first raised a Dorito to their lips.

“We could have Chez Panisse food in the cafeteria and the kids wouldn’t eat it,” says Marsha Guerrero, the executive director at the Edible Schoolyard. The key, she says, is learning how to grow the very fruits and vegetables they clam up to at the family dinner table. Guerrero cites calls from pleasantly bemused parents who want to verify that their kale- and pumpkin-hating children really ate kale and pumpkin as proof that their strategy actually works. “This may sound like a cliché by now, but it’s true,” said Guerrero. “If they grow it, they’ll eat it.”

Even if the sowed schoolyard concept has yet to become an integral part of the nation’s food culture, it is beginning to catch on. For starters, in Berkeley virtually every public school already boasts a garden-kitchen combo. And each year, more than 1,000 educators, health professionals, community advocates and legislators visit the Edible Schoolyard, bringing with them their reporter’s notebooks and taking back meticulous notes that, with any luck, will translate into their very own Edible Eden. In California alone, there are now an estimated 3,000 school gardens. And across the country, even in colder climates, like Michigan’s, where most gardens hibernate during the winter months, schools are using greenhouses and root cellars to cultivate their crops. “[They all don’t] have to look as nice as this,” says Guerrero, sitting on a bale of hay in the “Ramada,” a round open-air structure where gardening classes typically meet. Above her head, on a trellis, buxom kiwis hang heavy on the vine. At her feet a plot of earth hosts a riot of dahlias, columbines, and carnations. “It can be planter boxes for crying out loud. We just got really lucky.”

A garden of epic proportion isn’t all the Chez Panisse Foundation has to feel lucky about. They also have an all-star cast of board members, including celebrated entertainers, writers, and food activists. Mikhail Baryshnikov, Billy Collins, Eric Schlosser, Meryl Streep and Alice Walker are just a few of the foundation’s closest friends. With roughly 30 board members, the Foundation spends $1,000,000 annually on programming and grants, much of which goes toward the Edible Schoolyard.

One of the foundation’s upcoming programs is the replication of the Edible Schoolyard in at the Samuel J. Green Charter School in New Orleans, which will cost at least $500,000 to launch. “We hope to renew New Orleans one okra plant and one child at a time,” says principal Tony Recasner. Of the 400 children in grades K-8 at Green, 99 percent are African-American, 75 percent are from single-parent homes and the vast majority qualify for the federal freelunch program.

One of the foundation’s board members is Wendell Berry, whose oft-quoted phrase, “eating is an agricultural act,” comes close to Waters’ own vision. “To eat is to understand the consequences,” she says. For Waters, while the act of eating takes place at the table, the concept of eating goes way back to the farm from which the food was made.

“I eat a piece of bread knowing that the wheat is produced in a way that is sustainable, that the starter for the bread and the salt are produced in a way

that is sustainable, and [that] the people that are producing these products are being paid a living wage. The values of the food have to be understood to make that food real food and nourishing food.”

Waters is part of the “slow food” movement, brought about by Carlo Petrini in 1986 who championed an effort against the building of a McDonald’s near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

“The protesters, whom Carlo armed with bowls “ Teaching stu- of penne, defiantly and deliciously stated their case dents about against the global standardization of the world’s where food food,” wrote Waters in the comes from forward to Petrini’s colof essays, entitled, and how it is lection Slow Food: The Case for prepared may Taste. Referred to by some as the “culinary wing” of the be an impor- anti-globalization movement, Slow Food aims to tant contribu- combat the proliferation of food and preserve cultor to overall fast tural cuisines as well as their diet change.” associated food plants, domestic animals, and farming technologies.

These are the values that the Edible Schoolyard hopes to impress upon children. But it won’t be easy. With the junk food industry pouring cash into advertising directed toward children, it won’t be easy to change the way kids view food.

But Waters is determined. “Once you realize that there’s no mushrooms in the schools, and no electricity to plug the refrigerator into, people will begin to wake up to the neglect and maybe we can make a change.”

Change is indeed happening at the Edible Schoolyard. Classes are over for the day and the diffused afternoon light is intensifying the green of the leaves in the garden. Two eighth grade girls are wandering around the produce beds, making one last round before walking home.

The Edible Schoolyard’s informal mascot, a little ink-black chick named “Fishy,” is following nervously in their wake, pecking at grubs and fallen berries. One girl stops beneath a mulberry tree, its branches spangled with dark fruits. She puts Fishy on top of her head to see if the chick will eat directly from the branches. But Fishy simply tucks in her wings and settles into the girl’s hair.

The other girl joins the funny-looking duo, picks the blackest berry from the tree and hands it to her friend. The girl with the bird on her head takes the fruit and places it on her tongue. The moment her mouth closes, her eyes close, too.

B

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Looking Up

In a unique photo project, Mara Murray, Joe Ramos, and a few friends present the City’s homeless in a brand new light.

It started with the power of a speech. For years Mara Murray and her husband complained about the homeless in their San Francisco neighborhood. “Then one morning,” Murray says, “we heard Mayor Gavin Newsom talking about Project Homeless Connect on the radio. We had been looking for something positive to do, and the way he spoke reminded us of Bobby Kennedy, of someone who has the power to inspire a whole generation.”

Murray’s husband soon began volunteering with the city-sponsored project to help the homeless, and she began looking for a way to help as well.

Working with Kendra Stewardson, a former client of the project,they came up with the idea to photograph the homeless and to tell their stories through images and personal interviews. Joe Ramos, a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute and a colleague of famed photographer Annie Leibowitz, volunteered to take the portraits.

The result amazed everyone involved. “Joe went down [to the project’s headquarters] with his cameras, portable lights, and a simple backdrop, not knowing what to expect,” Murray recalls. But upon viewing the photographs, the group was stunned. “We thought, we have to tell these peoples’ stories,” Murray says. The result is a large portfolio of portraits accompanied by a story of each participant’s journey. Murray is currently organizing the project into book form to be submitted to publishers this November.

Since beginning the photo project, Murray has a newfound respect for the challenges facing the city’s homeless. “Each person you are looking at has his or her own personal dignity,” she says. “It is as if they are saying, ‘Thank you for taking my photo—now I don’t feel invisible.’” —Erin Hull

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“Project Homeless Connect gives people hope.”

<Ada Dison When Ada’s mother fell ill, she instantly became a full-time caregiver. Her mother eventually passed away, and Ada was left homeless.

Down on her luck and with few resources, she turned to Project Homeless Connect.

Through it, she signed up for the housing program and learned that she is eligible for new eyeglasses through Medicare.

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“Sometimes I make mistakes, but it’s that support team that can help to keep me up.”

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<Mark “Havoc” Patton

With heroin-addicted parents as role models, Mark found himself using heroin at the age of 14, and by 18 was selling his body on the streets of Miami.

“Sometimes I make mistakes,” he says, “but it’s that support team that can help to keep me up. I found that team here in San Francisco.” He says that Project Homeless Connect has been “incredibly helpful,” assisting him in obtaining a temporary ID, social security card, food, books, and hygiene products.

>Julie Mann Twelve years ago, Julie arrived here from Virginia, poor and addicted to heroin.

To make some money, she bought a bicycle and cart for one dollar and collected bottles and cans from the city’s streets. Over time, Julie was able to improve her situation, and six years ago kicked her heroin habit. Today, she still recycles, but she can’t make enough to pay rent. “Some people don’t understand,” she says. “I want to get stable, get into a real home, and I want to be happy.” Together with Project Homeless Connect, Julie is working to get into permanent housing with her partner.

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“I want to get stable, get into a real home, and I want to be happy.”

10/27/06 11:53:10 AM

<Melinda Garrett To escape beatings and drug use at home, Melinda ran away at age 14 and became a prostitute. By the time she was 15, she was selling the very drugs she had run away from.

After spending time in jail and juvenile hall, she returned home only to be thrown out by her mother’s new boyfriend. Her advice to others? “Step up and take a look at what you really have,” she says.

“Homeless is not what you want to be.” Project Homeless Connect helped her to find housing, mental health services, and medical care.

>Robert Matheson “Homeless is not what you want to be.”

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For Robert, alcohol was the only relief from the abuse he suffered as a young child at the hands of his family members.

At age 9, he was drinking regularly and by age 12 was dabbling in drugs.

Addicted to speed and crack for many years, Robert now attends recovery meetings and has confidence that he will break his addictions.

“Because I have hope, I know I am not a lost cause,” he says. “I still have my wits about me and deep in my heart I know I can recover.”

Project Homeless Connect gave him the podiatry care he badly needed. “It was a godsend coming here.” B

10/27/06 11:53:15 AM

“Because I have hope, I know I am not a lost cause.”

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time travelers

pirates

spies

monsters rocket scientists 94 Benefitmagazinesf.com

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San Franciscoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s homegrown writing center, 826 Valencia, expands its empire coast to coast and to various cities in between.

Conquest of the

Word Masters

By D i an a D unkelb erger â&#x20AC;˘ Pho to graph s: Anne Hamersky November/December 2006 95

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Mac Barnett is turning a shampoo bottle over in his hands. The liquid inside is viscous, the color of blood. “We haven’t gotten all the kinks out yet.

But we’re close,” he says, grinning mischievously.

“Rasputin Baby Shampoo” is one of the 300 products that Barnett and his colleagues are developing for the Echo Park Time Travel Mart. (“El Dorado Solid Gold Scrubber Pads” and “Mammoth Chunks” soup are two more of the works-in-progress.) This store, once opened, will be the retail counterpoint to 826 LA, an educational wonderland for kids that’s been up and buzzing since March of 2005.

Barnett, who is 826 LA’s program director as well as one of the store’s product developers, seems unconcerned about whether kids will get the shampoo’s allusion to Rasputin, the late nineteenth century Russian mystic. These days, what is a more pressing concern for Barnett is getting the Time Travel Mart’s lease signed.

“What’s great about Brooklyn and San Francisco and Seattle is that when young people graduate from college ... and they’re finding their way in the world, they oftentimes come to these urban centers.”

Niggling details of real estate aside, the opening of 826 LA is a testament to just how successful its flagship organization, 826 Valencia in San Francisco’s Mission District, has become. Since its founding in April of 2002 by best-selling author Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) and his longtime friend, Nínive Calegari, a former high school teacher, the nonprofit writing center has been helping students aged 6 to 18 with book publishing, after-school drop-in tutoring, in-school tutoring, writing workshops, and English as a second language classes. All of this work is powered by the energies and smarts of volunteer tutors. In San Francisco they number over 1,000.

Eggers and Calegari’s is a tale of how to take a successful, homegrown nonprofit on the road. In the last two years alone, they have added five new chapters (in New York, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Seattle, and Chicago) for a total of six—much to the surprise of Eggers himself. Early on, he says, “I didn’t think for a second that it would grow beyond the Mission.” In a nonprofit world where it is rare to expand so quickly, the founders, along with an extraordinarily dedicated staff, have managed to build a strong national organization while allowing each site to develop its own unique character.

Partners in crime: Nínive Calegari and Dave Eggers.

—Nínive Calegari

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I

t was a small zoning issue that shaped the eccentric character of the place where it all started, 826 Valencia Street. Eggers first leased the building because he wanted to provide a free educational center. However, he soon learned that commercial zoning laws required that he sell either goods or services. The solution?

Split the space up. The back area became the writing tutorial center. The front of the building became a pirate supply store with both goods (peg legs, eye patches, fake beards, striped shirts, etc.) and services (head-mopping, jokes-for-treasures bartering, etc.) for sale. Now part of the fun of opening an 826 is coming up with an eccentric storefront. 826 Chicago has “The Boring Store,” secret code for “The Spy Store.” Here, disguises and eavesdropping devices can be procured by young writers who supplement their burgeoning careers with a side job of espionage. 826 NYC carries superhero supplies. A wind machine in the back of the store allows patrons to test capes for their aerodynamic properties.

At 826 Seattle, the Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co. pledges to make goods available to “adventurers, commuters, rocket scientists (professional and freelance), tourists, theoretical mathematicians of modest idiom, specialists of all stripes, small crews, large parties, et cetera.” And, of course, there’s Mac Barnett’s store in Los Angeles: Echo Park Time Travel Mart.

“The storefronts are sort of an opening rhetorical gambit,” explains Barnett. “They prove we can build a superhero-supply store that looks exactly as cool as the one you’d imagine. And that’s the tone in the writing lab, too: Whatever project a student wants to work on, we say yes, let’s do this, let’s figure out how to successfully execute this idea.”

In addition to generating a sizeable amount of cash for its chapters’ educational programs, the stores have also contributed to the chapters’ sense of individuality. “You know,” Calegari says, sitting on the sunny deck behind 826 Valencia, “it’s not like a Bank of America franchise where we paint it grey and the font is red and here’s 27 handbooks for every single person’s job. The main balancing act that we need to negotiate is preserving excellence while making sure that every organization is organic to that community and that it’s not so cookie-cutter that it loses flexibility.”

This sense of individuality, set in a proven framework, is readily apparent in one of 826’s most successful structured programs: the storytelling and bookmaking field trip. At 826 Valencia, on a Wednesday morning, a third grade teacher shepherds her class past the pirate-supply store and into the workshop area—a tavernlike space decorated with worn Persian rugs, towering bookshelves, and antique chandeliers with red, flame-shaped bulbs. A few kids spend a couple of minutes throwing themselves headlong into the mess of pillows at one corner of the room. Others take turns peeking behind a curtain that closes off the office area. Eventually they all take their seats.

The lights dim. The projection of a large, blank screen appears on one wall. To the left of the screen a volunteer writing tutor stands by a whiteboard. To the right of the screen a volunteer artist sits before an easel.

The magic begins.

“Welcome to 826 Valencia!” says the tutor with a big smile. “Has anyone ever been here before?”

Hands shoot up.

“What did you do last time you were here?” the tutor asks.

“We met Mr. Blue!” squeals a Latino boy with a cherubic face and a buzz cut.

Timely Trifecta: Rocketeers are welcome at 826 Seattle; superheroes shop at 826 NYC; tutoring session at the original mothership 826 Valencia

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Salty Tales

A chat with Osvaldo Marquez, 14, a ninth grader at Gateway High School in San Francisco Benefit: Tell me about your first time at 826.

Martinez: My mom was looking for something I could do in the summer. She had me come [to 826 Valencia] and do a pirate workshop.

Someone brought pirate food.

What’s pirate food? It was really salty. She brought cookies that she put salt in. It was really gross.

I hear you’ve been coming to drop-in for three or four years. Yeah, I used to come every day. But since [tutors] kept helping me with my homework I got to learn more. They would teach me step by step how to do stuff and I got the hang of it. Now I come fewer times because I know what to do.

Do you like writing? Yeah, I do. I like it more now because I used to be really bad at handwriting and [826] has helped me have much neater handwriting.

My friends compliment me a lot about that. And my grammar’s gotten better.

I heard that you’re on the 826 Youth Advisory Board. What is that about? It recruits kids to come to 826 and see how it is. The first meeting was last week. We just went over the rules and [decided] how we were going to [elect] the treasurer and the notetaker.

Which position would you like to have?

Notetaking.

Because you have such neat handwriting?

Yeah.

—DD

“Yesssss,” replies the tutor, nodding gravely. “We’ll definitely need to talk about Mr. Blue.”

Heard but never seen, the fictional Mr. Blue is a crotchety editor who lives in the attic above the workshop, hidden behind columns of books and papers. He weighs 600 pounds and his body is covered with boils. He eats stories—children’s stories. But Mr. Blue won’t eat just any story. He demands that stories be creative and original. They can’t describe anything that comes from a movie or a book or a video game. If Mr. Blue doesn’t like a particular page, he will tear it out and throw it away.

Once the rules are explained, the tutor writes out a story model on the whiteboard: character, character’s personality, habitat, friends and family, biggest wish and biggest fear. As the students fill in the blanks, a volunteer in the back of the classroom is quietly typing out a story, which appears up on the projected screen. The volunteer artist, meanwhile, illustrates the story the children begin to create.

The tutor guides the students through the story to a cliffhanger.

At this point, the collective writing stops and students finish the story individually, sometimes drawing additional illustrations.

Once students complete their work, the pages are photocopied and bound. Students take individual “author photos” that are pasted onto the back cover. The books are then delivered to the terrible Mr. Blue.

From the workshop, the kids can hear Mr. Blue (played by an 826 volunteer) perusing the stories in the upstairs loft. “A four-inch leech named Mac who guards the castle!?” Mr. Blue mutters gruffly. Then, recognizing the sheer genius of this plot point, the implacable editor relents, his voice softening. “Well ... that’s pretty good!” The 826 stamp can be heard thudding its approval and the book is brought down and delivered into the hands of its proud author—a little slip of a girl with large front teeth and waist-length hair.

As in the retail stores, each 826 has adopted its own version of the original. 826 NYC’s Mr. Blue is Mr. Herman Mildew or, at times, his wife or mother. 826 Seattle has Mr. Geoduck (named after the largest biomass in Puget Sound: a gigantic clam). At 826 Michigan the children write for a Mr. Blotch; at 826 Chicago they vie for the attention of Admiral Moody. In the Los Angeles workshop, Barnett plunked down on a table their version of Mr. Blue: a humongous pink ear that sprouts out of a 1970s Fisher Price baby monitor.

The reason this activity, despite its specificity, has been such a successful export is that this disembodied character appeals to a specific age rather than to a particular community. “The reason a character like Mr. Blue works is that he appeals to the fantasy life of the elementary school aged child,” explains Elizabeth Galton, an expert in child psychiatry. “That’s true for a child living in New York City and it’s true for one living in Ann Arbor.” This type of play allows students to engage and nurture their creativity. At the same time time, these field trips are purposefully academic: teachers recognize what an effective combination this is and sign up for this field trip a year in advance.

826

Valencia began generating interest on a national scale “almost at the very beginning,” remembers Calegari, who not only helped Eggers start 826 but is now 826 National’s executive director. In the early stages, she was receiving multiple calls every day from people who wanted help doing exactly what she was doing. “What I felt at the beginning was, gosh, it took us so much time to figure out how to do some of the back end work of founding a nonprofit and getting everything up and running that, I thought, if

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I could save other people that time, I would love to.”

Before long, however, the number of eager callers was overwhelming. In response to the enthusiasm about the programs—and as a means of preserving their focus—826 published a sort of teacher’s manual, Don’t Forget to Write, which offered “54 enthralling and effective writing lessons for students 6–18.” Meanwhile, the interest in a few communities was so strong that it started to make sense to replicate the entire program. “Once three people from a certain city got in touch with us,” explains Calegari, “we tried to get them in touch with each other so they could go and have a conversation.

And from those groups people just got more and more serious about implementing the program.”

From the beginning, Brooklyn was an obvious next step. Eggers, whose literary publishing house, McSweeney’s, had a store in Brooklyn, had already generated some momentum around talented writers who were interested in tutoring. It was with these “friends of the family” that the first 826 sister site opened in Park Slope in September of 2004. Then, in March of 2005, 826 LA opened.

That same year, Seattle, Chicago, and Ann Arbor followed suit in June, October, and December.

Calegari says she has turned down numerous candidates that just didn’t make the cut. Recently, Phoenix, Arizona, and Lubbock, Texas, were turned away. But Calegari is quick to point out that the reason for not welcoming new cities into the fold has nothing to do with insider status. Rather, it has more to do with practical concerns.

“We need to know,” says Calegari, “as a very basic but incredibly critical piece, that they’re going to be financially viable and be able to raise money within their own community.” New chapters are not jump-started with any seed money, nor do they share other chapters’ donor money (although some donors voluntarily contribute to more than one chapter). There is also the question of the volunteer force. “What’s great about Brooklyn and San Francisco and Seattle,” says Calegari, “is that when young people graduate from college, and they’re looking for work, and they’re finding their way in the world, they oftentimes come to these urban centers.” In other words, until Lubbock, Texas, becomes a prime destination for college graduates, it’s unlikely that 826 will reconsider their application. Besides, with a couple of new chapters in the works (Calegari won’t disclose their locations) and six sites to manage, the application process is closed until further notice.

J

oel Arquillos—curly black-brown hair, hipster glasses, the latest addition to the San Francisco team—is sitting at his desk in the 826 Valencia office. A printout of Nelson Mandela’s inauguration speech is tacked up on the wall to one side of his workspace. The photocopy machine around the corner whirs almost constantly. Arquillos, hunched over his Mac, is searching for a file he’s been working on: the new 826 National Web site. “This isn’t finalized,” he warns. There is a space on the upper right-hand corner where a slideshow will eventually flash photos of 826 Valencia and its sister sites. A bar across the top of the page provides links to FAQS, the 826 application, events, a link to the stores’ Web sites, and friends of 826.

“We want this to be a community resource,” says Arquillos. “This could be as much a place where similar-minded nonprofits find out about each other as it is for people to find out about 826.”

Created at the tail end of 2004, just before the founding of the four newest chapters, 826 National is an umbrella organization that provides logistical support to existing sites. And Arquillos, a

San Francisco public high school teacher with experience directing nonprofits, is its new director of national programs.

In addition to the day-to-day tasks of fielding phone calls and tinkering with the national web site, Arquillos has been working on organizing the 826 National infrastructure. To this end, he is preparing a password-protected online handbook for chapter members.

The file he shows me has none of the 826 signature playfulness.

“The idea for the online handbook,” Arquillos explains, “is to create a living document to collect all the different forms that are used at the different sites. We want to have something so that when a new [chapter] comes on they will have all the information they need: bylaws, copies of successful grants, how to run a seminar, scholarship fliers, student evaluations, programs, job descriptions. Everything.”

In their early years, nonprofits are typically freewheeling and unstructured places, says Professor Nora Silver, the director of the Nonprofit and Public Management Program at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. “But at some point, to sustain the operation, or to grow, let alone to grow in other cities, you need the kinds of systems that will support that. The question is, how do you grow the organization 826 Valencia in a way that doesn’t deplete what you’ve been able to accomplish?”

Needs Your Help When asked how he envisions 826 in 10 years, Arquillos is extraorDonate! You can: dinarily careful with his words. He • Send a check to Donations, squints. “How do I imagine it to be 826 Valencia, 826 Valencia St., or how I hope it to be?” In typical San Francisco, CA 94110 826 fashion, however, when he ad• Give through its Web site: dresses both there is little difference 826valencia.org/helpout/donate between the idealistic hope and the • Ask your company to match practical vision. In fact, they seem your donation to be exactly the same. He wants Volunteer! You can: the existing chapters to be recognized widely and for their funding • Tutor in classrooms throughout San Francisco to be solid. He wants each chapter to have a closer relationship with • Work with young authors at its Writers’ Room at Everett Middle its surrounding schools and tighter School connections to local teachers. He • Help produce its student wants five more sites—maybe. newspapers: the Everett Middle Arquillos pauses, training his School Straight-Up News or thoughts on the bigger picture of in-house Valencia Bay-farer what 826 is all about. “Since becom• Provide design assistance with ing a teacher,” says Arquillos, “I’ve student publications been wanting to make sure that • Work with students in its communities in need are served. after-school tutoring program That’s what it’s all about. The other • Help with dynamic field trips day I was talking to Leigh [Lehman, hosted in its writing lab the development director]. We were • Produce fundraising and community events going to have a big meeting with Yahoo funding. We were all nervous, • Become an intern and learn the ins and outs of running you know. And then we were like, a nonprofit ‘What are we nervous about? Every• Join their development team thing we’re asking for is for good. and help raise the money It’s not like we’re here to cheat and to continue offering all their take their money. We’re here to ask student programs for free for something that’s genuine. EveryTo become a volunteer, fill out the thing we do is genuine.’ So we went online application at 826valencia. org/helpout/volunteer. in and we rocked the interview.” B

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Richard Goldman’s piercing blue eyes have attracted the attention of more than a few admirers, even drawing comparisons to actor Paul Newman.

What does Goldman think about being a philanthropic sex symbol? “I have only one answer: I wore glasses from age 10 to 80. And then I got my eyes fixed and I don’t wear glasses any more. Now I don’t go anywhere without someone saying, “Oh my goodness, your eyes are so blue.” I say, “Well, I don’t paint them.” Being compared to Paul Newman, that’s quite an honor, but I don’t think it’s true.”

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In the past 55 years, Richard Goldman has given unto others more than $500 million. No wonder he is recognized as one of the Bay Area’s most influential philanthropists.

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The Goldman Rule hen Asher Goldman was growing up, his grandfather,

Richard Goldman, often recited the Golden Rule, which to the ears of a young boy sounded like the “Goldman Rule.” “I grew up with the assumption that this philosophy had been conceived by my grandfather and was really only applicable to me and my extended family,” the young Goldman has said.

Richard and his late wife Rhoda Haas Goldman, a descendant of the family that started Levi Strauss, have been inspirational, far-sighted, and daring in their approach to philanthropy since they stated their family foundation in 1951. Since then, the Goldman Fund has given away more than a half-billion dollars in support of

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hundreds of charitable causes locally, nationally, and internationally. It has supported a wide variety of social causes including those touching on violence prevention, Jewish affairs, democracy, youth, and the elderly. More recently, Goldman made front-page news when he announced a $10 million challenge grant to the San Francisco Symphony aimed at increasing the company’s current $180 million endowment.

In 1990, Goldman and his wife established the largest award for grassroots environmentalism in the world. The Goldman Environmental Prize, which has been called the Green Nobel Prize, recognizes individuals working against overwhelming odds to preserve the natural environment. Every year, six winners receive $125,000 in prize money.

Considered by many to be one of the leading figures of Bay Area philanthropy, Goldman received the prestigious Heinz Awards Chairman’s Medal in 2005 for more than a half-century of magnanimous giving. This month he’s slated to receive yet another honor—a Lifetime Achievement Award in Philanthropy. Sean Sullivan, co-chair of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the San Francisco organization that is bestowing the award, calls Goldman’s philanthropic giving “unique” and “impressive.”

We visited Goldman at his office in the Presidio, in the city where he was born and raised. “I went to Galileo High School, and then I went to UC Berkeley,” he says. After a busy morning discussing grant awards with his staff, Goldman settled into his office with sweeping views of San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Marin Headlands. In person, he is modest and almost matter-of-fact about his enormous contributions.

Benefit: You’ve been in the philanthropy business for 55 years. At one point you said that giving away money is hard work. Has it been? Goldman: Well, it’s more demanding than most people think, and it requires a level of diligent research. But it’s lovely work, and I think there’s a new consciousness that philanthropy is something worthwhile for us to do. People like Gates and Buffett have encouraged this. In fact, what the Gates family has done is quite remarkable. They’re taking on problems of the world that nobody else is. But that said, to tell you the truth, there’s a lot of room for improvement Like what? For one, how much money foundations are willing to give out. Under current law, they are required to spend only 5 percent of their assets each year, and that amount can include money for offices, salaries, and other overhead costs. We endorse legislation that would exclude those expenses from the 5 percent minimum spending level. I have spoken out on this issue. [Goldman has written extensively about the topic for publications such as The Chronicle of Philanthropy.]

If the more than 50,000 charitable foundations that make grants were to increase their giving to 10 percent, nonprofit groups could reap $15 billion more annually. That would give organizations the boost they need, which would translate into better public education, more after-school programs, more job training, and more families with food on the table.

How much are you giving away at your foundation?

Five years ago we just made up our minds we were going to give away more. Now we give away 10 percent, and our expenses are pretty modest compared to others. And in time, the word’s gotten out, and I think many others have followed our lead.

But the more foundations give, the greater the chance that they will eventually run out of money. Well, if they do, it’s okay. Ten years after I pass away, the Goldman Fund will terminate. The funds will be distributed to my children’s foundations and to certain projects such as ending hunger or maybe to fight AIDS or improve education.

Those are broad fields but we are trying to find a way to do some of these. We don’t believe in perpetuity, except for the Goldman Prize.

So from your point of view how should someone go about giving away their wealth? I tell my friends who make a lot of money, “You know, making money up to a point is fine. But if you really want to get some value out of your life, start thinking how you can give it away.”

Jerry Yang , the cofounder of Yahoo!, and I were at a meeting in Berkeley at the International House five years ago. We were introducing ourselves, and Jerry said, “You’re my hero.” And I said, “I haven’t done anything.” He said, “You’ve done what I want to do.” And since then he’s started to do it. If people are willing to spend a few dollars and build up a foundation, they’ll realize how much more they can do. I tell everybody, “If you can organize even a modest-size foundation like we have, you get a lot more mileage out of it rather than making personal donations.” And I also tell them, “The sooner you can get someone to manage a foundation for you, the better off you will be.”

Anything else you let them know? That I’m basically against giving money just so a building will be named after you. We made a few concessions after Rhoda died, but, for example, we gave the lead gifts for the Conservatory of Flowers and the Jewish Community Center, and we made it

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very clear that we wanted them both to be known by their original names. I thought by taking a stand against naming, other people might get the message. But it hasn’t worked.

One of your greatest legacies has been the Goldman Environmental Prize. To date, 113 environmentalists have received $10 million in grants. Of all these prize winners, is there anyone who stands out from the crowd? Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian environmental activist who took on polluting oil companies and his government. He was jailed for a crime he did not commit and was eventually executed for standing up to corrupt forces in his country. His son came to receive the award for him. There’s also Wangari Maathai, who got the Noble Peace Prize 13 years after we gave her the prize. [Maathai launched Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, a grassroots tree-planting organization composed primarily of women aimed at curtailing the devastating social and environmental effects of deforestation. She received the Nobel Prize in 2004 for “her diligent work and dedication to the environment of Kenya and its people.” She is now Deputy Minister for the Environment and Natural Resources in Kenya and a member of parliament.]

Where did your commitment to the environment come from and how did the prize get started? Growing up I was a member of a Boy Scout troop, which was very active and had a lot of outdoor activities. And Rhoda was a Girl Scout. We were both interested in the outdoors. I remember a particular fellow who was a river guide in Oregon, and who was a real protector of the environment. And we’d go fishing with him, and we would talk about the things he was doing and what he thought could be done, and it was people like this that just rubbed off on us.

Then about 18 years ago I was reading in the papers about the Nobel Prize. I was curious and wondered why there wasn’t a comparable prize for environmental work. So I told my staff to do some research and see what’s out there. To our total amazement, there was nothing. So after some more inquiries, my wife and I took a look at one another and we said, “Let’s go for it.”

What was the first prize ceremony like? There was a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. We didn’t know if it would work or not. We didn’t know if anyone would come, or if we would have to bring in busloads of people. We tested something that was never done before ... and it worked.

Have you made any awards or grants that you regret?

I’ve often pondered that. I’d say, basically, no. We’ve never given a grant where the people did not act honestly. On occasion, they were overly-enthusiastic and they ran out of money. But at least the purpose was a legitimate one, even though they didn’t manage it well. By the way, we never micro-manage. We never go to somebody who has received one of our grants and say, “You’ve got to do this.” We just give it to them and let them run with it. If they come back for more money and they have done well, then we will support them again. If we don’t think they have done well, we wish them good luck and look for the next opportunity.

Speaking of “micro,” what are some of the smaller gifts that you’ve given? Do you, for instance, give to people asking for a handout on the street? Well, we don’t carry bills around to pass out. [Laughs.] We’ve tried to keep our giving consistent with the number of gifts we make annually, which usually totals around $40 million. Today I would say for the most part the smallest gift we would give is $1,000. In a couple of cases, our individual gifts have totaled as much as $10 million.

What are some of the gifts you are most proud of?

What I’m most proud of is serving as a catalyst, helping others realize their dreams. For example, from 1997 to 2000 we worked with several environmental organizations trying to protect land in Alaska. We gave a $5 million leadership initiative, and now I think they have raised more than $30 million. Our work has helped to save a lot of land that otherwise would likely have gone to development.

Where did your philanthropic drive come from? Was it something that was encouraged as you were growing up? As far as growing up, no, but once I married Rhoda, we had very similar beliefs about giving. And then in 1951, a friend of mine who was a lawyer said, “You know, you can establish a foundation. It’s very simple to do, and then you can put money into it and then you can parcel it out as you wish.” So in the mid-70s we decided, why not? Then in the late 1980s, we decided to have someone manage the fund and all the requests that were coming in.

Over the years there have been quite a few people who have inspired me. There’s a fellow just turning 100, Louis Heilbron, a local attorney. I’m always watching how he is doing things. He’s a terrific citizen who gives his time to many causes. And my father-in-law, Walter A. Haas. Then more recently, a guy like the Right Reverend William Swing, because he’s trying to get the religions of the world to understand and work together. So, different people at different times have come into my life. But most of what we’ve done we just did it because we believe. The thing is, this all just sort of grew. It had its own momentum. When we look back, we scratch our heads, and say, “How did we ever get all this done?” B

Training the Next Goldman Winner The Goldman Environmental Prize is not just about recognizing a few individuals. It is also about training the next generation of potential winners. To that end, the Goldman organization has published a comprehensive course for high school students that teaches ethical decision-making through an examination of one’s relationship to the natural world.

The Environmental Ethics curriculum, written by members of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, consists of a 60-minute video that features past Goldman Prize winners, a student workbook, a teacher’s guide, and an interactive online community.

The curriculum, which has been endorsed by 30 science and environmental foundations, can be purchased for $29.95 online at envethics.org.

The Goldman Fund has donated 1,500 copies to high schools throughout the United States.

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Ringers, Cookers, Handlers, and Stuffers

Introducing Our Complete Guide to Holiday Volunteering

By Bridgett Novak • Woodcut: Jerry Nelson Additional Writing and Reporting by Erin Hull and Pisha Wayne

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his Christmas Day, as they have for the past seven years, Mary Barhydt will position herself in front of a piano, her husband Ralph will take hold of a clarinet, and her two daughters will ready themselves at violin and harp. When the Barhydt family quartet plays, they will be giving their gift—carols and classics—to the 60 senior citizens gathered at San Francisco’s Raphael House for its annual holiday brunch.

“We have the skills and it is something we could do as a family,” says Mary. “It gives us a way to be less focused on ourselves during the holidays.”

In the next two months, thousands of individuals and families just like the Barhydts will be volunteering at hundreds of nonprofits throughout the Bay Area.

Will you be one of them?

To help you find just the right volunteer job, we have put together our Complete Guide to Holiday Volunteering. At last count we had gathered together 47 opportunities broken down into five major categories and spread throughout the region. Some require a little preplanning and scheduling, and others you can do at the very last minute.

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Ho, Ho, HoHos:

Be a Cook and Serve a Meal

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s a truck driver delivering HoHos and DingDongs, Charles Giovannini was always greeted with outstretched hands whenever he drove through San Francisco’s Tenderloin. “All the kids knew I had cupcakes and Twinkies on board. I was so frustrated that I couldn’t give them any.”

In 1995 Giovannini, now 73, retired from Hostess and started volunteering at St. Anthony’s in San Francisco. “It allows me to serve food to some of the same people I used to have to drive by,” he says. “And it is a way for me to thank God that I personally have never had to miss a meal.”

St. Anthony’s has been serving hot meals to the homeless for 56 years, averaging 2,600 meals most days, and 3,300 meals on Christmas Day. It and Glide Memorial Church are the most famous providers of hot meals in San Francisco—which is why their holiday volunteer lists get filled up quickly. Both have all the volunteers they need for their actual Thanksgiving and Christmas events (see below for other ways to serve these two institutions), but there are plenty of other places that need volunteers to help serve their meals.

The San Francisco Rescue Mission delivers meals to 3,000 homebound Tenderloin residents on November 18 and December 16. Then on November 23 and December 25, it serves 1,500 hot turkey meals and hands out bags of groceries and toys at its facility on Jones Street. People are needed to help cook the meals and bag groceries. If you’re fleet-footed, you can help run the meals to residents’ homes. Volunteers are asked to show up at 8:30 a.m. the day of the event.

Contact Michelle Huang at 415-292-1770 (michelle@sf911.com) to get involved. Huang says they urgently need food for all four days—specifically turkeys, hams, and stuffing. Food and toy donations can be dropped off any time.

Raphael House in San Francisco, which helps at-risk children and their families, serves three meals on Thanksgiving Day: two for neighborhood seniors and one for the families staying in the shelter. People are needed to set the table, do prep work in the kitchen, and serve the meals. They also need assistance with their Christmas Day brunch. Another way to help? Buy presents and a holiday dinner for a family who used to stay in the shelter but still needs help. Contact Carol Field at 415-345-7265 (volunteers@raphaelhouse.org) if you’d like to get involved.

The Haight Ashbury Food Program serves holiday meals from noon to 3:00 pm on November 23 and December 25. Volunteers are needed November 22 and 23 and December 24 and 25. Shifts usually fill up about two weeks in advance. Pies and cakes are needed for Thanksgiving; socks and grooming supplies (e.g., hair brushes, combs, toothbrushes and toothpaste) are needed for the Christmas gift packs. Donations can be dropped off any time at 1525 Waller Street. Call 415-566-0366 if you’d like to help with the meals.

Presidio Gate Apartments, a San Francisco residential community sponsored by the Episcopal Homes Foundation for very low-income seniors and people with disabilities, needs help setting up and serving its Thanksgiving Day meal from 1:30 pm to 5:30 pm. You can bring a favorite dish to share. Call 415-567-1050 to let them know you’re coming.

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Catholic Charities’ Peter Claver House, a residential community for formerly homeless people with HIV and AIDS in the Western Addition, needs volunteers to assist with its Christmas Day meal from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Call 415-749-3817 if you’re interested.

St. Anthony’s Padua in Menlo Park serves hot meals to an average of 575 people six days a week. Volunteers are needed on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, since more than 1,000 people show up on holidays. Contact Max Torres at 650-3659665 (maxtorres@ (maxtorres@ covad.net). covad.net Bread of Life in East Palo Alto needs people to help prepare its holiday meal. Volunteers

will be cooking up a storm on December 21 from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm. Call 650-326-9797.

If you go, remember to take your favorite potato peeler.

The Salvation Army-San Jose is hosting a holiday meal on November 23. Organizers need people to set the table, serve the food, and clean up afterward. They’re also looking for people to provide entertainment—e.g., singing, playing a musical instrument, performing magic tricks. Call Ligaya Sorich at 408-282-1165, ext. 209, to get involved.

The Salvation Army-Oakland will be serving Army1,500 lunches on Thanksgiving Day. Volunteers are needed on November 20-22 to help prepare the food and to serve on the actual day.

A similar schedule will apply for the Christmas meal. Prep work will take place December 20–23; servers are needed on Christmas Day.

If you’d like to help, call 510-437-9437.

The League of Volunteers needs help setting up, preparing and serving food, decorating, and providing entertainment at its annual Thanksgiving Day feast in Newark. Call 510-793-5683 if you’d like to donate food or help with the actual event.

This year marks the 24th anniversary of the Livermore Community Thanksgiving Dinner.

The event serves about 2,000 people and is held at the Bothwell Recreation Center from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm on November 23. An informational/sign-up meeting will he held at the center at 6:00 pm. November 8. Money is needed to help purchase food; people are needed to cook, serve, and deliver meals to shut-ins. To get involved, show up November 8 or call Beth at 925-292-8722. If you’d like to make a donation, or know someone in the Tri-Valley area who needs a meal delivered,

Food Glorious Food: Donate, Deliver, and Sort

CHRISTINE BALDERAS

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t’s called continuity: Linda Lee of San Francisco worked for years as an executive assistant at Del Monte Foods, and now she spends her retired years sorting and repacking some of the very same foods she helped manufacture. Every Wednesday she travels across town to the San Francisco Food Bank from her home in the Sunset. “There are a lot of people who don’t have sufficient funds to provide food for their families, and the food bank can supplement incomes that otherwise wouldn’t stretch as far,” she says.

Every county in the Bay Area has a food bank, and the holidays are their busiest time of year. Join Linda Lee at the San Francisco Food Bank, which will distribute holiday food to more than 14,000 lowincome households through its network of 152 neighborhood pantries. You can sort donated food from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm. Monday– Saturday. Evening shifts are available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

A special shift will be held on Thanksgiving Day from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. According to Volunteer Services Coordinator Sam Marcum, the Food Bank is not able to take walk-ins, so people need to call or email him to choose a time: 415-282-1907, ext. 244 (smarcum@sffb. org). The Food Bank will be closed on December 25 and 26.

The Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano Counties will distribute holiday food to 12,000 low-income households in December.

Volunteers are needed to help sort and box donated food. Saturday

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call Helene at 925-640-1501.

The Ritter Center provides over 600 traditional meals to needy individuals on Thanksgiving. Organizers need turkeys, nonperishable food, or grocery store gift cards.

Development Director Susan Mitchell asks that donations be dropped off at 16 Ritter Street in San Rafael by November 17.

St. Vincent’s (aka Vinnie’s) dining room in San Rafael also hosts free holiday meals on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even though volunteers are no longer needed for these two days, food is. “The frozen turkeys and other meats that are brought to us during the months of November and December feed our clients year-round,” says Volunteer Coordinator Cris Jones. Food can be brought to the dining room at 820 B Street seven days a week from 6:30 am to 1:30 pm.

and evening shifts have already been taken for both November and December, but people are still needed for weekdays, and will continue to be needed throughout 2007. Contact Sharon Zeppegno at 925-771-1306 (szeppegno@foodbankccs.org) for more information.

Every week the Alameda County Food Bank provides food to more than 40,000 low-income and working poor adults, children, seniors, people with disabilities, abuse survivors, people living with AIDS, and the homeless. The numbers increase over the holidays. Volunteers are needed to sort and box donated food.

Contact Charles Beyer at 510-635-3663 (cbeyer@accfb.org) cbeyer@accfb.org) to schedule a time cbeyer@accfb.org to help.

The Marin Community Food Bank needs volunteers to “adopt” the food collection barrels it places in grocery stores and other commercial businesses.

Adopters check the barrels, empty them when they’re full, and deliver the food to the Food Bank’s facility in Novato. On November 18, people are needed to help prepare the food for distribution. Call 415883-1302 to get involved.

The Salvation Army-San Francisco delivers approximately 3,000 holiday meals on Thanksgiving Day

Help Beyond the Holidays Everyone we spoke with for our Complete Guide to Holiday Volunteering moaned just a little. They wished people had the same desire to volunteer year-round as they do for the holidays. The disadvantaged people they serve do not go on vacation; their needs for basic food, shelter, and clothing remain constant. We hope the names of the groups mentioned in this article will remain with you. The next time you have a free day or even just a couple of hours, give them a call and see how you can help.

Donate Your Legs: Go for a Run One way to donate to the San Francisco Food Bank is to participate in the Thanksgiving Run & Walk for the Hungry in Golden Gate Park on November 23. Five dollars from each entry fee and 100 percent of all pledges will be donated directly to the agency. Call 650-635-4572 for more information.

Can You Spare a Butterball? ’Tis the night before Christmas and you’ve got an extra turkey in the freezer: where can you donate it? Glide Memorial Methodist Church.

“There are never enough turkeys,” says Calvin Gipson, Glide’s managing director of human services. “We’ll take them all the way up to Christmas day.” For information, call 415-674-6040 (meals@glide.org).

and another 3,000 on Christmas Day. According to Captain Phil Smith, they have enough volunteers to serve and prepare the holiday meals. “Many families and individuals have made this an annual tradition, and help us out, especially with the turkey carving,” he says. The agency, however, does need volunteers to help deliver meals to people who are stuck in their homes. Call 415-503-3006 or 553-3568 to help on Thanksgiving and 415-777-2677 to help on Christmas.

The Salvation Army-San Jose needs people before December 18 to help sort food and toys for its holiday giveaway. Then December 19 to 21, volunteers are needed to deliver the gifts to needy families. Call Liwayway Gimenez at 408-282-1165, ext. 218, to participate.

Each year over 600 families (nearly 2,000 individuals) are served free holiday meals Oakland’s Harbor House. at Oakland The meals are made possible by donations. Nonperishable food (or money to purchase it) is needed before November 16 for the Thanksgiving meal; Christmas donations must be received by December 13. Help is also needed with the meals themselves. To volunteer, call 510-534-0165 or e-mail volunteers@hhministries.org. volunteers@hhministries.org

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Toy Joy:

Give Gifts, Sort Toys, and Wrap Dreams

and then let them know via phone (415-972-1200) or e-mail (moreinfo@cccyo.org) which items you’d like to donate.

If you’ve always wanted to be one of Santa’s elves, now’s your chance. The Grandparent Caregiver Resource Center in San Jose, which helps individuals who are raising their grandchildren, needs assistance distributing gifts, overseeing games and crafts for the children, and managing the bedlam at its annual Christmas party. It will be held from 10:30 am to 3:00 pm on December 9.

Call 408-325-5165 to get involved.

Sacred Heart Community Services in San Jose needs volunteers to sort toys, books, and clothes for low-income children of Santa Clara County on December 21 from 5:00 pm to 8:30 pm. Call 408278-2171 if you’d like to help.

Over 50,000 donated gifts need to be sorted, matched, and wrapped at the Family Giving Tree in San Jose from noon to 2:00 pm on December 16. The gifts are then distributed to over 250 Bay Area service organizations. Call 408-946-3111 or e-mail volunteers@familygivingtree.org.

Sunnyvale Community Services needs help bagging and sorting food and toys on December 13 from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Last year, they provided holiday gifts to over 1,100 needy individuals.

Call 408-738-4298 to provide assistance.

San Mateo’s Samaritan House provides holiday boxes to lowincome families, seniors, and people with disabilities each year.

People are needed on November 18 and December 23 to help sort food and toys. Volunteers are also needed to deliver boxes to people who are unable to come to the distribution facility. Last year 400,000 pounds of food and 40,000 toys were handed out.

To make a donation or provide assistance, call 650-341-4081.

Jewish Family & Children’s Services of the East Bay distributes toys, clothes, and gift cards to hundreds of low-income, refugee, and immigrant families each holiday season. Donations are needed by December 15. They can be dropped off at 1850 Tice Valley Boulevard in Walnut Creek or 2484 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 210, in Berkeley. Call Kathryn Winogura at 510-704-7480, ext. 529, for more information.

Harbor House in Oakland sponsors a Christmas Store every year where low-income families can purchase new gifts for their children at greatly discounted prices. In order to stock the store, they need unwrapped items brought to 1811 11th Avenue before December 21.

Items most needed? Clothes (jackets, gloves, pants, sweatshirts, pajamas), school supplies, coloring books and crayons, board games, sporting equipment (especially basketballs), dolls (brownand black-skinned), items for pre-teen girls (journals, bath kits, purses), and popular toys (no stuffed animals, please).

Community Resources for Independent Living offers various services to people with disabilities in Alameda County. For the holidays, they are asking for donations of gift cards (ranging from $10 to $25) for phone calls, grocery stores, restaurants, and other retail businesses.

Call 510-881-5743, ext. 17 (info@cril-online.org) for more information.

The Concord Senior Center is seeking warm caps and scarves, as well as single servings of food (such as individually packaged tea, soups, or crackers) to distribute to needy seniors. Because organizers will wrap the gifts on November 18, please drop off your donation before then or bring it on that day. Please show up at 9:00 am. if you’d like to help.

Share Manna-Basket, which was established by seven churches in Contra Costa County, provides children’s gifts, special food baskets, and grocery certificates at Christmas time to needy families in the East Bay. To lend a hand, call 510-741-7468.

MAARTJE VAN CASPEL

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oanne Paletta, program director of the Toys for Tots program at the Newark League of Volunteers, has seen her fair share of toys over the 22 years she’s been there. First it was Cabbage Patch Kids. Now it’s CD players. And then there were the dreaded Teddy Ruxpin bears. “We’d be throwing toys in the barrels,” Paletta recalls, “and they would be talking back to us. So if you had somebody volunteering who didn’t know what was in the bag of toys, it was quite a shock.”

This holiday season Paletta’s group will collect and distribute toys for over 25 agencies in the Fremont tri-city area. Last year, the program’s volunteers ranged in age from 3 to 103. Volunteers are needed to place collection boxes, pick up and sort donations, match donors with needy families, and help with the December 10 benefit concert and December 16 holiday party. Contact 510-793-5683 (vol@lov.org) to provide assistance.

In addition to its special meals, San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church gives away 6,000 bags of groceries and 5,000 toys during the holidays. To help, call 415674-6080 or e-mail volunteer@ glide.org.

At St. Anthony’s, “we welcome people who want to donate clothing, blankets, and nonperishable food just prior to Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as people to help collect them at the curb,” says Marie O’Connor, volunteer coordinator. The donation days are November 18 to 23 and December 19 to 25. Call O’Connor at 415-592-2726 if you want to help receive the donations curbside.

The Salvation Army warehouse on Jesse Street in San Francisco will be filled with new, unwrapped toys during the holidays.

Volunteers are needed every day between December 20 and 23 to help choose appropriate gifts for low-income families. Last year, nearly 3,700 children received gifts through this program.

Call 415-575-4848 to choose a shift.

The Salvation Army has a similar program in the South Bay. Its annual Toy & Joy Shop will be open at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds from December 19 to 21. Call 408-282-1165, ext. 218, to arrange a time to help.

Catholic Charities CYO has prepared a list of holiday items needed by various nonprofits in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin County. Everything on the list—from clothing and toys to g i f t cards and food—will directly benefit Bay Area families, disabled adults, and seniors. Check out the list at cccyo.org/ wishlist

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Ring a Ding:

Collect Coins and Carry Trees

A

t 14, Janice Smith of Pacifica is already a veteran giver. When she was 2, “she used to pick flowers and take them to neighbors’ houses,” says her mother. Smith regularly puts aside $30 of her monthly allowance to help sponsor a young girl in India and organizes bake sales whenever there is a special need, like to raise funds for the Indonesian tsunami victims in 2004.

Last year, she came up with a novel way to celebrate her birthday. She decided to invite five friends to ring the Salvation Army bell with her outside Macy’s in San Francisco’s Union Square.

Yes, Janice is here to say, you too can become a bell ringer.

Last year the San Francisco branch of the Salvation Army raised $220,000 just from the big red kettles, 31 percent of its holiday donation income.

Bell ringers are needed throughout November and December in San Francisco and San Mateo County (call 415-553-3568 or 553-3593), in Santa Clara County (call 408-2821165, ext. 207), and in Oakland (call 510-437-9437).

If you live in San Francisco, you’ve certainly heard of the Guardsmen Christmas tree lots. Did you know you can volunteer to work in the lot?

If you’re interested, just send an email to info@guardsmen.org and be sure to include your contact information. The money raised helps the Guardsmen provide educational, camping, and other opportunities for disadvantaged children throughout the Bay Area. B

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William Salit Design magazine art direction / production / publishing services

wmsalitdesign.com