June 12, 2002
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
Cover Story
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Auxiliary to the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital 
Photographs by Jacqueline Ramseyer Bernie Griffin (left), Val Bovone with grandson Jack and Betty Gassett celebrate San Jose Auxiliary's 60th anniversary. San Jose Auxiliary to the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital celebrates its 60th anniversary By Susan Wiedmann In the heart of Willow Glen, women with caring hearts are donating their time to raise money for seriously ill children whose families cannot cover the medical expenses not compensated by their health insurance. The volunteers belong to the San Jose Auxiliary to the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, and on June 19, 2002, they will celebrate the 60th anniversary of their organization. The festivities will take place in the Thrift Box, the auxiliary's successful volunteer-run Lincoln Avenue store, which exists for the sole purpose of raising funds for the children. Arden Belshaw of Willow Glen is the manager of The Thrift Box. She is a retired operating room nurse who says she was so used to being active that she needed something to do in her retirement. Her initial involvement with the auxiliary was a typical initiation. A friend who belonged to the auxiliary kept telling her about the group and finally convinced her to join in 1997. 
Perusing: A customer peruses the large selection of hardcover and paperback books for sale at the San Jose Auxiliary to the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital's volunteer-run Thrift Box store. "What drew me was that it was for the children's hospital," Belshaw explains. "You want to see the children get better." An unusual hospital policy also inspires the volunteers to donate their time at the store and on related committees. "The hospital is the one place that parents can take their children and not be asked if they can pay for the care before they get the care," says former auxiliary president Kim Haney. The hospital's budget for uncompensated care is around $5.5 million a year, and seven Bay Area auxiliaries contribute a total of approximately $1 million to it. The San Jose auxiliary's 2001 contributions - approximately $230,000 - were drawn from its Thrift Box sales and auxiliary fundraiser. Currently the auxiliary has 83 active volunteers and more than 200 dues-paying members. The reasons that women join the auxiliary usually have to do with wanting to help those in need, but the deep friendships that often develop are an unexpected bonus. Members treat each other as equals, even if one member happens to be the auxiliary's president and another member is a brand-new member who tags clothes in the store. Many of the members even chipped in to buy the Thrift Box building after The David and Lucile Packard Foundation donated a large sum of money so that they wouldn't have to spend much-needed money on rent or a mortgage. "Everybody cares about everybody," says member Jan Allen. "If you walk in the door and you even look like you have a problem, whoever is here is going to give you a hug. They're going to say 'What's the problem?' and maybe that's all you needed - someone to talk to." The early years Member Betty Gassett's late mother-in-law Veryl Gassett was one of the 12 founders of the San Jose Auxiliary to the Stanford Home for Convalescent Children. In 1942, when the San Jose auxiliary was founded, four other auxiliaries to the home existed in the Bay Area, and the women wanted to add contributions from communities around San Jose. The home took care of children with diseases like tuberculosis and polio, primarily by giving them much-needed long-term bed rest, sunshine and fresh air. The home eventually evolved into the Children's Hospital at Stanford in 1969, and the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in 1991, and is now a high-tech facility treating a variety of serious medical conditions. 
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer No Complaints: Alden Belshaw, manager of the Thrift Box, shows off her 'no complaints' button. Belshaw has been a volunteer at the store since 1997. During its early years, most of the auxiliary's donations came from "Blum's Day," a twice-yearly event at San Jose's Blum's Department Store at which members would work for one day, sell cookies and war bonds, donate their salaries and receive a percentage of the store's sales for the children's home. In 1947, the auxiliary opened its original store, the San Jose Auxiliary Thrift Shop, on the third floor of a downtown San Jose office building. "I remember my mother-in-law saying that was because then people wouldn't be ashamed of shopping in a thrift shop. They could surreptitiously go upstairs and do their shopping up there," Gassett says. Times have changed, she added, and many Thrift Box customers today brag about finding bargains and even "treasures" at the store. Times have also changed in other ways for today's members. Most of the women who founded and worked in the store during the first couple of decades were full-time homemakers all their married lives, whereas today's volunteers are mostly a mix of working and retired women. Considering how women in general were viewed by society at the time of the auxiliary's founding, the original auxiliary women accomplished a lot. "When you read everything about the founding, in those days everything was written 'Mrs. Harry Gassett,' " Gassett says. "You never used the woman's first name. Women didn't have first names in public." The new store The auxiliary's Thrift Shop moved to a regular retail spot on West San Antonio Street in 1957, then to another location, on North Market Street, in 1967. It moved again to a place on Lincoln Avenue, near Willow Street, in the early '70s, where it took on The Thrift Box name, before finally finding a permanent home in its present location at 1362 Lincoln Avenue in 1982. It was renovated in 1998, partly with money given by the Packard Foundation, and it now occupies two floors. Bernie Griffin is the San Jose auxiliary's current president. All the volunteer positions have an official term of one year, but a training period of a year precedes each term. The manager of the store works about 26 hours each week, making it the job that requires the most hours. The rest of the volunteers are required to work a minimum of 6 hours each month in the store, with an extra three hours per quarter, or 12 hours, if their work involves the processing of donated items on the second floor. If someone is interested in joining the auxiliary, she is sponsored by a member who is responsible for training her for one year as a provisional member. They visit Stanford, and the provisional member develops an understanding of why the women are so enthused about their work. "It's a feeling you get of being able to give back to the community and to watch and listen to the stories about the children who have been healed or who died, and, in the dying, how much the family was cared for," Allen says. As some examples of caring, she cites donations of baptismal outfits so that poor families can have an outfit in which to baptize their ill or dying baby. In addition, several auxiliary members make special quilts for children who are at the hospital, and sometimes the quilt is the only thing the child owns. The auxiliary operates smoothly due to the commitment of various committee members. Like the auxiliary's board, committee members serve for a term of one year. The time spent on committee matters doesn't count toward the minimum hours required in the store. "It's almost six hours a day for me," Antje Hirt says about her involvement with publicity, fundraising and sales. But she adds that she is happy with the work because she wanted to give something back to the needy after having had a good life herself. Along with member Dee Felicetta and Haney, Hirt is spending much time publicizing the 60th anniversary event. Department managers price the clothing, but in the knickknack department everyone is trained to price, as they are learning to do the sales work. There is no voting about which volunteer will get to do a job, but instead an attitude of "anyone willing to do it" tends to prevail. Husbands, children and grandchildren get involved at times when members need extra help. The Thrift Box's customers tend to be from all socioeconomic walks of life, and Belshaw says that seniors frequently come in to browse and shop. For some of them, she says, the store has even become a social gathering spot. One regular customer is a record collector who used to come in to buy the vinyl treasures. He now helps categorize and tag the records the store receives. Mothers with young children are also frequent customers. "We're doing two services - raising money and providing a service for people who don't want to or can't afford department store prices," Gassett says. The members ask the public for only good-quality donations. An assembly line type of system moves donated clothing and other items onto the selling floor. All donations are brought to the back door of the store and then taken by a volunteer to the second floor, where clothing is carefully checked for stains, rips and signs of wear. Many clothes that pass the first of three inspections are then washed in a nearby washer, dried in an adjacent dryer, and ironed; volunteers do about 12 loads of laundry each week. The clothes are then placed on hangers and size-tagged, and a trained volunteer prices the garments. Rejected items are either set aside for the St. Vincent de Paul Society, or, if unusable, set aside for the trash. Pumpkin Patch The auxiliary will hold its 30th annual Pumpkin Patch fundraiser on Oct. 12 at First Congregational Church, located at Leigh and Hamilton avenues. It takes a year-round effort to prepare for the event, beginning with setting aside some good-quality items whenever they are donated to the store. At the 2001 event, $46,500 was raised in six hours. Sponsorships were included in that amount, but sales of jewelry, plants, "treasures and antiques," home-baked goods, Christmas merchandise and rare books took in more than $30,000. A favorite part of the Pumpkin Patch fundraiser for the public involves the drawings for valuable donated prizes. This year 10 different prizes are planned, including a week at a home in Lake Tahoe, a golf package and a sports ticket package. Tickets will cost $1 each or 12 for $10. The most popular donated prize is the Willow Glen Shopping Spree, worth hundreds of dollars, says Hirt. They expect a great turnout, based on the success of previous years. "As our membership grows, so do the numbers of all the people we impact and contact," Allen says. To celebrate the anniversary with the public, The Thrift Box will hold a drawing June 19 at 11 a.m. for a $60 shopping spree at the store. Entry forms can be filled out beginning June 3. The Thrift Box is located at 1362 Lincoln Ave. in Willow Glen. Its hours are Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m. For further information, call 408-294-4490. |
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