Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
The Art of Giving: Claudia Maciel, left, talks with Marie Burr about the art pieces for sale. The art was created by Maciel and various other artists at the Holidays on Hudson open house held at Maciel's home last weekend.
Shelter gains from donations made at Willow Glen boutique
Artists highlight San Jose Family Shelter at first-ever art event
By Kate Carter
'Tis the season for shopping and giving, and one Willow Glen woman has found a way to do both together.
Claudia Maciel hosted a Nov. 11-12 arts boutique, Holidays on Hudson, to showcase creative products made by her and nine of her friends. But she also took the opportunity to invite customers to donate items needed by the San Jose Family Shelter.
"We still have stuff coming in," she said last week before she took the items over to the shelter. "I'm still picking up donations" from people who wanted to donate after the event ended.
The San Jose Family Shelter is located in northeast San Jose and hosts up to 35 families at a time, said Phincy Koovakada, the shelter's volunteer coordinator and community resource specialist.
She said that the shelter is trying to increase the services they provide to the more than 140 people housed there, but that they need more help.
"We're kind of in transition," Koovakada said. "It used to be just a shelter, but we're trying to reestablish programs for all parties. As soon as we get more people to help out, then we'll be offering more. We're here to provide them more of a program than just a shelter."
The shelter started off in a former warehouse that the city and county converted in the early 1990s, Koovakada said. The shelter receives some funding from those government agencies but also relies on grants and private donations.
"The community helps us out quite a bit," she said.
Maciel said she found out about the shelter through her work as an art teacher for the Eastside Union High School District's older adult education program. In her crafts class last fall, she taught her students to turn air fresheners into Renuzit Dolls, and after the project she suggested that they donate them to a worthwhile cause.
One of her students was Jo Roll, a member of the Sunny Hills United Methodist Church that had been involved with the San Jose Family Shelter, making meals and providing services, since the shelter began.
Roll mentioned the shelter might be able to use the class's donations, so Maciel brought them over.
The relationship that has grown from there is nothing less than serendipitous.
"It's just the way this whole thing has been happening," Maciel said. "It all just kind of fell into place."
When Maciel and another student, Jan Brunner, decided early this year that they would like to host a boutique and encourage people to bring donations for the shelter, the shelter itself was beginning to focus on providing more services to its families and to reach out to the community for more help.
One of the specific projects the shelter identified was building a library for the clients, especially with books for adult education, said Koovakada. The shelter receives a lot of children's books and novels, but not many educational resources that could help parents learn the skills they need to break the cycle of homelessness.
"If they haven't learned those skills, they end up homeless again," Koovakada said. "We want to give them the tools to get housing and keep their jobs."
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Clothing: A visitor to Holidays on Hudson admires some of the hand-made scarfs that were available for sale.
Many of the shelter's families became homeless when a spouse lost a job or left, or when the family lost its home through fire or eviction, Koovakada said. Not all the families in the shelter are low income, she said. But by the time they reach the shelter, they have all reached a point where they need some time and help to make a new start.
"Many have been homeless for some time," Koovakada said. "They've reached the limit of their resources."
Families at the shelter receive a room with enough beds for as many as six people. Families with more people receive another room. They stay for three to six months and receive three meals a day, seven days a week.
During their stay in the shelter, parents spend their days going to school and looking for housing and work, Koovakada said. Children go to school or attend the shelter's child-care program or the Head Start program next door.
Koovakada said the donations from the Holidays on Hudson boutique, which Maciel estimated amounted to about $800 of books, toys and toiletry items, would help the shelter take care of the families' immediate needs, and allow the families to concentrate on taking care of their long-term needs.
In addition to the new library and the regular essential items the shelter's families need, Koovakada said the clients also need people to help them gain the skills to get back on their feet.
The shelter tries to provide classes to parents on a variety of topics: housing and legal rights, life skills such as time, anger and stress management and conflict resolution, job skills training, English and a Second Language, and Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous groups. The shelter wants to require parents to attend at least two of these evening classes every week. But classes are taught by volunteers and are not necessarily consistent or sufficient enough for all the parents the shelter has.
"We're trying to get established and it's in the middle of the process," Koovakada said. "There's just so many needs here. People are here for so many different reasons. There's a lot of people that have that ability out there. There's a lot that people could give."
Koovakada said the shelter also needs people to help provide child care while the parents are in classes, tutor school-age children, make and serve meals, and be mentors to the families. Any program or service that people think would be helpful to the shelter and could commit to provide is something that Koovakada wants to know about, she said.
"I'm always asking community members if they'd be willing to come and share some of their knowledge," she said.
Roll, who started Maciel's relationship with the shelter, said she is gratified by what she began, especially because her church cannot give as much time to the shelter anymore.
"I have passed it along to somebody else," she said. "It's sort of an inspiration."
Maciel said she has already gotten commitments from even more artists to do the boutique and solicit donations for the shelter next year.
"It's just a generosity of spirit, and you don't know where it's going to go," she said.
The San Jose Family Shelter needs donations of bed and bath linens, diapers and hygienic products, clothes and toys in good condition, and educational books. It is also looking for people to share their time and talents to provide services the clients need.
To make a donation or learn more about volunteer opportunities, contact Koovakada at 408.926.8885, ext. 106.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
