Almaden Resident
Cover Story
Photograph by Vicki Thompson
Special Delivery: Juan Flores (left) hands out boxed Thanksgiving meals to Will Race (center) and Jon Renfro (right) to deliver to local, needy families from the Via Monte-Hoffman Court neighborhood in Almaden Valley, as part of the congregation of South Hills Community Church's participation in the 'Beautiful Day' weekend on Nov. 17. The church adopted about 70 families in need, and students from Pioneer High School lent a hand loading up the boxed meals.
Beautiful Day
Local churches lead state service event
By Lisa Sibley
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, churches throughout Silicon Valley are giving thanks by reaching out.
As part of a massive church-sponsored weekend called Beautiful Day, Nov. 17-19, more than 40 churches throughout the state, including two in Almaden Valley, participated in a variety of community outreach efforts.
WestGate Church brought the Beautiful Day event to San Jose two years ago as a way to serve the community. The program was first started by a church group in Arkansas but quickly evolved on the West Coast, as WestGate's pastor Jon Talbert invited other churches throughout California to join the campaign. This year, churches from San Diego to Sacramento were involved in hundreds of activities designed to build relationships in their communities through acts of compassion.
In Almaden Valley, South Hills Community Church and The Vineyard Church participated in the event.
"It's a frantic push," Talbert said, in the week leading up to the Beautiful Day weekend. "Literally, every day, somebody else calls from some part of California."
In San Jose, a long list of South Bay businesses ranging from automotive shops and realtors to contractors, roofing and painting companies donated their services and equipment.
The beneficiaries ranged from schools and teachers, day laborers outside of Home Depot in need of a brown bag lunch, hundreds of families who received complete Thanksgiving dinners in a box, those unable to keep up their properties and people living with HIV/AIDS, to name a few.
Using its bright yellow sunshine logo, Beautiful Day organizers wanted residents to see their local churches as community hubs by sponsoring blood drives, donating used coats for shelter residents and providing homemade cookies to local fire and police departments. A "free market," instead of a flea market, was offered to those in need at the Cornerstone Community Church parking lot, all day on Nov. 18. The idea behind such acts was not to increase church membership, but to simply serve communities in heartfelt ways.
Pine Hill School, for students with learning, behavioral, social and emotional difficulties, received a makeover to an existing community garden, thanks to the congregation at South Hills Community Church. About 350 volunteers from the church were also busy at Almaden Elementary School, adding 139 shrubs and redwood bark, a new outdoor life-science lab, completing a makeover of the teacher's lounge and adding storage, among many projects at the site.
"We were able to make folks lives more joyful. It other words, we were able to give them a beautiful day," said South Hills pastor Larry Brundage. "But this is something we want to do year round--all the time. This is one weekend, yet, we're trying to instill that this is something we want to do all the time."
An all-city celebration, attended by politicians and parishioners alike, finished off the weekend on the night of Nov. 19 at the Church on the Hill. But what it all boiled down to, Tony Tolbert said, is that they just want to be good community members.
"We have to look around to see where there is need, where people can be blessed by something we do. Everything has to start inside with the desire to reach out to people," he said.
For more information about the Beautiful Day weekend, visit www.ourbeautifulday.org.
Lisa Neves Woldt contributed to this story.
