Saratoga News

Letters

Thanks for all of the support

We wish to express our heartfelt thanks to all the wonderful people, friends, customers and strangers, who offered their support and encouragement during our long legal struggle to keep the Saratoga Drug Store in the Village.

From our very first day as owners of the business, we have considered ourselves caretakers of a local institution that has had a long history of serving the people of the community. What amazed us was the outpouring of emotion when it seemed we might have to close. So many people cherish the ambiance and personal interaction that small businesses offer and hate the disappearance of such places as has been the trend in the '90s. It is imperative that the Village offer the basic services to local residents rather than be simply Restaurant Row. The grocery, hardware, pharmacy, post office, etc., are essential if the Village is to remain a meaningful shopping area.

Thank you again for your awesome support.

Ray and Francine Rossi
Saratoga Drug Store
Big Basin Way

Once again, this community helped

Operation Reindeer 1997 served more than 85 families in the Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cambrian Park and Campbell areas. Each family received a huge box of food, individual presents for each member of the family, and scrip for perishable foods in a local market. The boxes were delivered the Friday and Saturday before Christmas by a fleet of drivers.

Operation Reindeer has been active in the Los Gatos area more than 20 years, though the name has evolved. At one time it was known as Project Help, and all the food was first gathered, then sorted into individual boxes. It has always been a Red Cross project, but in recent years the boxes have been filled by individual real estate offices from the Los Gatos-Saratoga area. The PenWest Realty Board now coordinates directly with the West Valley Advisory Council of the American Red Cross' Santa Clara Valley chapter, and both Realtors and WVAC volunteers do the footwork.

Names are first gathered from the school nurses at Los Gatos schools (both elementary and high school), Union School District, Live Oak Day Care, the Family Services Agency and the Jewish Community Center. Each family must give permission to receive, and the names are treated confidentially. No realty office knows recipients' names.

This year, the boxes were delivered to the Stewart Title building on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road for final sorting. The entire room was filled with boxes in festive wrappings, and the care and enthusiasm given by each office was very evident.

Packages for children up to age 16 were delivered from the third-grade classes of Mr. Kropp, Ms. Benjamin, Mrs. Adams, Ms. Kath, Mrs. Mayer and Mrs. Bersano, plus Girl Scout Troop #274 (Susan Mason, leader) at Blossom Hill School; and the fourth-grade class of Bridget Sheehan at Dave Avenue School; and these were added to appropriate family boxes. (There were so many wonderful packages that when the boxes were filled to overflowing, the overflow packages were taken to the family shelter downtown.)

Special thanks are in order to the West Valley members of PenWest, who, it should be noted, continued this yearly custom during the lean realty years, too. Also, our thanks to the school nurses who spent a tremendous amount of time checking with each family: Linda Bortolussi at LGUSD, Bonnie Knopf at LGHS, Ruthellen Oveland at USD.

Also, to Kaye Davis at Live Oak, Kris Jensen at Family Services and Avital Agam at Jewish Community Center. June Smythe coordinated names from these agencies, and Joan Donlon was my right-hand aide at PenWest. Dyer Stickney and his crew of volunteers delivered under sunny skies this year.

To all the volunteers who came out that last week to work with the boxes and deliver them, our special thanks. It was an extremely busy time for everyone, and they somehow found the time to be involved in this very worthwhile project. Also, we really appreciated having Stewart Title allow us to use their large conference room for the entire week.

To the Realtors and their staffs who filled the boxes with their personal donations, thank you for making Operation Reindeer 1997 a huge success.

Frank Blaisdell, chairman
Operation Reindeer

Correction

In the Jan. 7 issue of the Saratoga News, the address for the organ transplant fund for Bahjat Alaadel was incorrect. The correct address is Box 291, 4960 Almaden Expressway, San Jose, 95118.

[ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ]