In this season of giving,
the Santa Maria Sun wanted to tell its readers they’re a bunch of flakes.
But we mean that in a good way. Really.
Most Central Coast residents probably aren’t too familiar with snow, so allow us to explain how it works. It doesn’t just show up on the ground in fully formed blankets and drifts. The thick snowbanks we see in East Coast news reports and skiing videos are made up of thousands, millions, billions of individual crystals. Yeah. Snowflakes.
One flake doesn’t weigh much at all. It’s silent and slight and small. The ground doesn’t shake when it lands. It doesn’t scream through the sky like a bottle rocket. But when it gathers together with a whole bunch of other individual flakes, big things happen. Schools close. Roads shut down. Avalanches loom. Big things.
So think like a snowflake this year as you read these wishes, needs, and wants from local nonprofits. You don’t need to bring the world to a halt with your earth-shattering gift. Just be a flake and do your own small part. Then, when all the other flakes in this town get together and do the same, big things will happen. Nonprofits will open their doors. Charities will increase their giving. Hope will glimmer on the horizon.
Big things.
Nonprofit Support Center
“Our core mission is to help nonprofits do their good work better,” said Nonprofit Support Center Executive Director Lisa Holden. “It’s a little corny … but it’s really what we’re here to do.”
But even a nonprofit that helps nonprofits needs help of its own.
“We’re just really, really cutting back,” she said.
Holden explained that donations to the group’s library—which offers books on management and planning, boards, accounting for nonprofits, strategic planning, coaching, and leadership—would help strengthen resources available to other nonprofits looking to bulk up their infrastructure.
The center would love to build more of the library around books on leadership, but Holden said that monetary donations would be best, so staffers could handpick the resources. (But if you’ve got some books that would be perfect for lending, give regional manager Maria Fabula a call at 928-2503.)
Like the nonprofits it helps, the NSC could use a hand with supplies—like copy paper—for its offices in Santa Maria, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara.
For more information about the group or how to donate, visit supportcenter.org or call 681-1040.
—Ryan Miller
Orcutt Children’s
Arts Foundation
In a time when fiscal belt-tightening has meant the end of many art programs, the Orcutt Children’s Arts Foundation has stepped in to fill the void. But the nonprofit needs support to continue providing its services. The foundation was established in 2002 to create sustainable funding for visual and performing arts for nearly 5,000 students in the Orcutt Union School District.
The foundation’s past president, Chris Slaughter, said it’s largely in need of financial donations to help fund its various programs.
The foundation’s efforts provide for artist-in-residence lessons in drama, visual arts, and dance each year on a rotating basis for every student in the district through the sixth grade. The foundation and its supporters fund programs for junior high school students to experience outreach programs from PCPA. In addition, the foundation awards competitive classroom mini-grants to teachers in the district. This year, larger schoolwide grants will be made available to teachers and administrators in the district as well.
The foundation also needs new or barely used band instruments to lend to students in its band programs.
To make a donation, contact 938-8966 or e-mail ocaf@orcutt-schools.net.
—Shelly Cone
The Alzheimer’s
Association, California
Central Coast Chapter
Start stretching, and lace up your walking shoes.
Roy Allen, area coordinator for the Alzheimer’s Association, California Central Coast Chapter, said people interesting in contributing to the fight against Alzheimer’s can participate in Memory Walk 2009, set for Sept. 26.
The walk—which raises money for chapter offices in Santa Barbara and Santa Maria—is the group’s biggest annual event in Santa Barbara County. The 2008 Memory Walk at Waller Park in Santa Maria raised almost $40,000 for local services. Nationally, the Alzheimer’s Association Memory Walk has raised more than $200 million since it began in 1989.
Locals can also help by making donations any time, or by volunteering.
“Anything is deeply appreciated,” Allen said, adding that monetary donations will go toward chapter operating costs and, of course, Alzheimer’s research.
He also said that the Santa Maria office always needs volunteers to file and take care of other office work.
The Alzheimer’s Association provides support and services—such as educational outreach and adult day care—to people and families with members suffering from the disease.
For more information about the Alzheimer’s Association, California Central Coast Chapter, or to make a donation, visit alz.org/cacentralcoast/ or call 636-6432.
—Amy Asman
The Dunes Center
What does it take to make a difference? Not much. Wishes come big and small. So do the needs of nonprofits. The Dunes Center in Guadalupe covers one of the largest dune ecosystems in the state, yet its needs can be easily met by some generous souls.
According to Mario Castellanos, executive director of the Dunes Center, the organization always appreciates generous donations—for the education programs, perhaps—and volunteers. Its specific needs, however, are small but crucial. The center could use things like Costco gift cards, Office Depot gift cards, a heavy-duty paper cutter, and native plants. And because of a leak, Castellanos said, they’re wishing for a roofing contractor to help fix the roof on the Dunes Center.
As for volunteer time, the Dunes Center has two cleanups planned for the coming months: one at Oso Flaco Lake and one at Rancho Guadalupe Preserve. Anyone willing to donate their time for the cleanup—or even for weekend house hosting—is much needed.
If you’re looking to donate time, money, or materials to the center, contact Castellanos at 343-2455, visit dunescenter.org, or simply drop by 1055 Guadalupe St. in Guadalupe.
—Shelly Cone
Santa Maria Valley
Discovery Museum
Not everybody is looking for a big—or even intact—gift this season. The Santa Maria Valley Discovery Museum would be more than happy to get little bits and pieces of things from the community.
Carrie Rosing, managing director for the museum, said they’re always looking for items for their Creation Station—“anything from cardboard to popsicle sticks to markers [to] foam shapes or any scraps that a business might just have,” she said.
Usable recyclable odds and ends—no grease- stained pizza boxes, please—can be used in all sorts of craft projects for kids. Need an idea? A recent big hit was a donation of wetsuit material.
Administrative needs fall a bit more on the practical side of things—not that they don’t like fuzzy pipe cleaners, too.
“We can always use Costco or Office Depot cards to keep our costs down in the business area,” Rosing said.
So go ahead, help the Discovery Museum stock its printer with paper and ink. And throw in a stack of empty shoeboxes while you’re at it.
Call the museum at 928-8414, or drop by 705 S. McClelland St. in Santa Maria.
—Ryan Miller
Pacific Pride Foundation
The fight against AIDS isn’t cheap, and the locally based Pacific Pride Foundation needs supplies, supplies, supplies in its ongoing battle.
The group primarily serves the HIV/AIDS and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities of Santa Barbara County by offering anonymous HIV testing and HIV prevention education, case management and counseling services for people living with HIV and AIDS, and access to a food pantry stocked with free and low-cost goods. In the North County, it’s the only organization approved by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors to run a needle exchange, which helps prevent the spread of the diseases. The group also oversees a handful of events and services, such as youth outreach, discussion and support groups, domestic violence prevention services, and even a gay and lesbian film festival.
“The food pantry is having a hard time getting non-perishable items like laundry detergent, toilet paper, and other toiletries,” said volunteer coordinator Jocelyn Smalley. “We also need bottled water.”
And along with donations—supplies or monetary—the foundation with Santa Barbara- and Santa Maria-based offices always welcomes volunteers and advocates to the HIV/AIDS and LGBT communities.
For more information about the Pacific Pride Foundation, visit pacificpridefoundation.org or call 349-9947.
—Amy Asman
Search Dog Foundation
Earthquakes destroy houses and offices, burying people under piles of wood and debris. There they lay, trapped—until the search dogs find them.
The Ojai-based Search Dog Foundation recruits rescued canines, trains them, and partners them with firefighters and other first responders—all for free. Since 1996, the group has graduated four-legged team members that specialize in finding people in the aftermath of national disasters, ranging from mudslides to collapsed buildings, such as the World Trade Center rubble after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Though the nonprofit’s headquarters are in Ventura County, the organization operates more than 60 teams across the nation, including Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. The dogs come from shelters and breed-rescue groups, located by the “Bark Force,” made up of trained volunteers who visit Central Coast shelters and evaluate potential search dogs.
When it comes to donations, community relations specialist Celeste Matesevac said the Search Dog Foundation isn’t like most animal-centered nonprofits.
“Our dogs’ needs are very specific,” she explained. “They have special diets, and they all have their own crates to sleep in.”
Rather than donations of food and other supplies, the Search Dog Foundation needs volunteers to join the Bark Force.
Matesevac added that approved dogs rescued from the Central Coast region are ideal because they only have to travel a few hours to Gilroy, where the foundation’s trainers start working with the soon-to-be heroes.
For more information about joining the Bark Force or to make a donation, visit searchdogfoundation.org or call 1-888-459-4376.
—Amy Asman
Return to Freedom
Horses need hay, but folks who want to feed their four-hoofed friends this season don’t need to bust out a sickle anytime soon. They don’t even need to buy a bale to buck in the back of their truck.
The easiest way to donate hay to Return to Freedom, the Lompoc sanctuary “dedicated to preserving the freedom, diversity, and habitat of America’s wild horses,” is to sponsor a horse or become a member, said Jill Anderson, director of development and communications.
Sponsorships cost $45 per month, run for as long as a donor chooses, and help cover the care for one horse or burro. Memberships cost $20 annually, and members get a membership card and Return to Freedom newsletters. Both levels of participation can be bought in someone else’s name.
If you’ve absolutely got to donate something with mass, the nonprofit could use paper, file folders, and other office supplies, as well as feed for a smaller sort of beast: potbelly pigs.
For more information, visit returntofreedom.org, call 737-9246, or e-mail admin@returntofreedom.org.
—Ryan Miller
The Santa Maria Sun staff likes flakes of all kinds—except the sort that can be treated with a medicated shampoo. Compliment their holiday hairstyles at mail@santa mariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 25, 2008 – Jan 1, 2009.