Giving is its own reward.
They don’t wear fancy capes or funky masks, and they aren’t famous for being faster than a locomotive or leaping tall buildings in a single bound. To the best of our knowledge, none of them can fly (except in a plane) and they’re not blessed with piercing night vision (unless they’re using special goggles).
Nonetheless, they are superheroes, daily performing acts of kindness that have dramatically changed the lives of thousands in the North Bay. They’re individuals, organizations and businesses that go about their charitable work quietly, mostly behind the scenes and out of the public eye. Most of them don’t like to talk about what they do—they just like to do it. Since this issue of NorthBay biz is devoted to nonprofits that serve our community, we thought it was time to pull back the curtains (just a little) and finally give credit to a few of the “hidden heroes” who richly deserve our thanks.
Feeding the hungry
America is a nation obsessed with food. There are food networks on television, radio shows devoted to food and wine, a profusion of food magazines and even weekly newspaper sections that are all about food, food and more food. Grocery stores, fast food diners and restaurants are everywhere. We have the world’s best farms, with abundant crop yields year after year. Yet millions go hungry.
Every morning at 6 a.m.—seven days per week and 365 days per year—a cadre of volunteers shows up at the Free Dining Room operated by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in downtown Santa Rosa. For the next five-plus hours they prepare hot, well-rounded meals for people down on their luck and looking for nourishment. Promptly at 11:30 a.m., the doors to the dining hall swing open and, for one hour (the length of time is limited by its city use permit), all walks of mankind, from babies to senior citizens, are served lunch for free, no questions asked. And it’s been like this for the last 30 years, during good times and bad.
“Last year, we served more than 85,000 meals to the poor, the disabled, the disenfranchised and others in need,” explains Dana Luce, executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Sonoma County, which is headquartered in Rohnert Park. Luce says people don’t realize how pervasive hunger is in America, and it’s no different in the North Bay.
“With the last recession, many jobs were lost, and as folks went back to work, many found their wages had dropped significantly. The government sets the poverty level at an income of $11,490 per year, but that’s nationwide. Try to live here on that income, with our prices so much higher, and it’s a whole different story,” he says, explaining that many of the North Bay’s working poor make use of the free dining hall. “Also, about 10 percent of those we serve are the hardcore homeless, many of whom suffer from psychological and medical issues. But really, we’ve seen all sorts of situations, even families with children and babies. We try to keep diapers and formula available at all times.”
Luce says, at the first of the month, they’ll typically serve 200 lunches per day, but as the month progresses and people begin to run out of money, the demand spikes. “By the end of the month, we’re averaging around 340 meals per day,” he says.
Luce says it would be impossible to provide the meals without donations from people and businesses in the North Bay. The society runs a retail thrift store in Rohnert Park, which generates revenue to help pay some of the $17,000 per month it costs to run the dining hall. Donated clothing—including jackets and sweaters (and blankets during the cold season)—are also provided free of charge by the thrift store and are distributed at the dining room every two weeks.
As an independent organization, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul depends on cash donations from individuals, vehicle donations and merchandise donations (which are cycled through the thrift shop). The society is also a registered recycler for electronics (items can be taken to its Rohnert Park location and recycled at no charge).
But North Bay businesses also play a critical role. Food is donated by grocery stores, including Trader Joe’s, Lucky and Safeway, among others. Costco donates every kind of food item except meat. Smaller catering companies also donate excess food, and WHOA (Work Horse Organic Agriculture) Farm, a Sonoma County nonprofit that uses draft horse farming to promote sustainable and organic agriculture, also is a major supporter. All food grown by WHOA is given to organizations in Sonoma County that serve people who don’t have access to organic produce. Redwood Empire Food Bank is a major partner, as is Sonoma State University, which safely stores its cafeteria leftovers for the Free Dining Hall.
Petaluma Poultry Processors (home of Rocky the Range Chicken) is also a generous donor, which is critical, because Luce says many of his food providers balk at donating meat.
“Several years ago, there was a successful lawsuit against a company that donated meat to a charity after people got sick from eating it,” Luce explains. Since then, meat and poultry has been hard to come by and is one of the group’s biggest out-of-pocket expenses.
“We get just about everything we need,” Luce says, “just not enough of it.” Because of the recent economic downturn, the Free Dining Room has been operating “in the red” for the last few years, Luce explains. “To offset this loss, we had our first annual fund-raiser this year, Harvest for Humanity,” says Luce. “It consisted of a dinner with a live and silent auction. It was quite successful, with about 200 people attending, and has helped reduce our deficit significantly. We look forward to next October, when we’ll host our second annual event.”
Right now the organization needs a new truck with refrigeration so it can pick up donated food (it’s currently using picnic coolers to store perishables).
The Free Dining Room has always flown under the radar, Luce says, because it doesn’t want to make waves. A lot of people weren’t happy when it was established, believing it would attract more troublemakers in an area already suffering from blight. But there have been few issues over the years.
The new economic reality, however, requires the Free Dining Room to get more exposure to secure more donations. “Our belief in the past was that we should keep quiet and just do our work of helping the poor,” says Luce. “As a result, we’ve become the best kept secret in Sonoma County.” However, the new economic reality has required the organization to be much more high profile to let the community know about, and help support, the vital service it provides.
There is a Santa Claus
More than 20 years ago, a woman named Linda Fox was working for KZST Radio in Santa Rosa when she heard about a Secret Santa program that a radio station outside the North Bay broadcast area was conducting. The station was collecting letters from needy people, reading them on the air and getting people in the community to fulfill holiday wishes for the less fortunate. So she approached her boss, morning drive time DJ Brent Farris, who thought it was a good idea for KZST.
“So we asked people to send us letters,” Farris says, “and we got one letter. One letter!”
Fast forward to Christmas 2012: Sonoma County’s Secret Santa—now an official nonprofit organization recognized by the Internal Revenue Service—collected and distributed gifts to more than 16,500 individuals in the North Bay and raised funds to provide gifts and assistance to clients of 102 nonprofit and social services agencies in Sonoma County. And it’s still growing.
Farris says the letters start arriving at the studio right after the first cold snap. Most of the requests are basic—food, heat and warm clothes. Gift requests are actually third. KZST collects the letters and begins reading them on the air the day after Thanksgiving all the way through to Christmas. At one point during the holiday season, the radio station has a 24-hour broadcast marathon, where it takes monetary pledges and plays song requests in exchange, usually at Coddingtown Mall or Santa Rosa Plaza. Farris used to do the marathon from the radio station, but finds the malls are better venues because they get the cause “in people’s faces,” he says.
“People bring in bags of presents and socks loaded with money that they’ve been saving all year for me. It’s like I’m Santa and they’re bringing me money. It’s just great.”
When the program first started, KZST employees would deliver the gifts. Farris has many touching memories, like the time they went to a recipient’s trailer, which was parked under a redwood tree in Forestville. “There’s nothing colder and darker than life under a redwood tree,” he says. “We showed up with a tree and food, and all we could see were two kids peeking out the trailer window. We talked them into letting us in—which we probably shouldn’t have done, in hindsight—and they told us their mom and dad were at work. We noticed they didn’t have any heat or power because their propane tanks were empty. So we left the food and a Christmas tree, wrote them a note, then we filled their propane tanks.”
There also was a woman whose washing machine “had pooped out,” Farris says. All her spare money was going to the local laundromat because she couldn’t wash her clothes. “So one day we sent over a delivery truck with a brand new washer and dryer, wrapped with a ribbon, with a note that said we heard she needed a little bit of help.”
Once, Farris talked a plumber into going to a house on Christmas Eve to fix a water heater for a senior who hadn’t had hot water in a month. “When he got there, he saw the woman needed all sorts of plumbing work, so he brought in his entire crew to fix what needed to be done and Secret Santa covered the labor costs.”
Then there was the man who was on the verge of being homeless, but was so embarrassed by the condition of his teeth that he refused to go for job interviews. “We got the guy teeth,” Farris said. “We found a dentist who redid his mouth. Within a year he had a job and a home.”
Have a heart
The letters KZST reads on the air can be absolutely heartbreaking. Just ask another “hidden hero”: Bill Friedman, co-owner (with his son, Barry) of Friedman’s Home Improvement stores in Santa Rosa, Sonoma, Ukiah and Petaluma (the latter opening in spring 2014). For several years now, Friedman’s Home Improvement has been a major sponsor of Sonoma County’s Secret Santa.
“I was driving my car into work one day and heard Brent Farris reading a letter. I didn’t know anything about Secret Santa, actually, but all of a sudden, the story he was telling was so sad that I got tears in my eyes and I said to myself, ‘I gotta help!’ So I called him from my car phone, we talked on the air, and I donated to the letter he was reading,” Friedman recalls. “Then, about an hour later, I’m driving somewhere else and he’s reading another letter. The tears start falling, so I call him up again. I told him I wanted to help, so I donated again.”
Months later, Friedman and Farris ran into each other at a celebration of life for a mutual friend. “I sat down with Brent and asked him to tell me about the program,” Friedman says.
“Within a few minutes, we both were crying,” Farris remembers, “and then Billy tells me that Friedman’s Home Improvement is involved with the Volunteer Center and, ‘We have what you need—people.’”
Because of his company’s corporate partnership with the Volunteer Center of Sonoma County, Friedman knew about its hearts program, where holiday gift wishes of needy individuals are placed on red heart ornaments on trees in public locations throughout Sonoma County. Noting the similar missions of the two programs and considering how costs and efforts were being duplicated, Friedman set up a meeting between KZST and the Volunteer Center. The two organizations decided to work together “to make one great program for helping the community,” Friedman says. Sonoma County’s Secret Santa was born with Friedman’s Home Improvement and KZST as its major sponsors.
“Billy underwrites the whole Secret Santa program out of his own pocket,” Farris says. “That way, we get to spend every penny we raise on the families that need the help. We don’t have to pay for any administrative costs or office supplies, because Billy is taking care of those costs.”
KZST provides the promotional boost, the Volunteer Center provides the people who make it all happen, and Friedman’s Home Improvement provides the working capital.
“When you reach so many people, it’s unbelievable,” Friedman says. “I can’t believe how much it’s grown. There are times that I go down [to Heart Central, rented at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds] and nonprofit agencies are standing in line waiting to pick up gifts. You see firsthand how grateful they are, and it’s just so heartwarming.”
Doing what’s right
While Friedman’s Home Improvement is publicly connected with Sonoma County’s Secret Santa (and is a major sponsor of the Petaluma Veteran’s Day Parade) there are many other projects that it also supports from behind the scenes.
“We do things daily for the less fortunate—seniors, children and people who need just a hand up—but we don’t want everyone to know about it,” Friedman says. “That’s how I was taught by my parents. If you do things from your heart, it’s an automatic. We’re not after the media coverage.”
Friedman says his father, Benny (co-founder of Friedman’s with his brother, Joe) was his role model. “My father taught me to do things when it’s the right thing to do,” he explains. “His whole message was to always give back to the communities that have been so good to you.”
The Friedman Family, for example, was one of the 12 families that bought the Christian Life Center Church from bankruptcy and donated it to the Santa Rosa community for use as a performing arts center (formerly the Luther Burbank Center and now the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts). It also built the Friedman Event Center in Santa Rosa, “because my parents and my uncle thought it was important that the community have a place where they could go to have events.”
And while giving is a Friedman family legacy, Bill is quick to point out that there are many families in the North Bay who deserve credit for the work they do under the radar.
“We’re a little more visible because we have a company that’s visible. That’s all,” he says.
Ya gotta have wheels!
If you live in San Francisco, owning a car can be a royal pain. You can spend hours just trying to find a parking space—and lots of dollars once you do. But in the North Bay, a car is almost a necessity, considering that public transit is in short supply. That said, owning a car is a considerable expense for anyone, but especially if you’re poor.
Two automobile repair companies, Blake’s Auto Body, with shops in San Rafael, Novato, Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa; and G&C Auto Body, which has locations in Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Windsor, San Rafael, Novato, Rohnert Park, Ukiah, Fairfield and Vacaville, have stepped up to the plate with auto donation programs for needy people.
Blake Andros, CEO and owner/founder of Blake’s Auto Body, says his company has so far donated five cars to people in vulnerable situations.
“The idea came from the manager of our San Rafael shop, Anthony Algood. He came to me one day and said ‘Let’s give away a car.’ So we did,” Andros explains. “We gave away two!”
The cars aren’t brand new, but they’re revitalized—completely checked and guaranteed safe—as well as repaired, painted and detailed, as necessary, so they look good, too. They get people where they need to go. “Generally, they have more than 80,000 miles on them and just need to be fixed up. We do the brakes, put on new tires, provide new belts and hoses and fix any bumps and bruises, then we give away a healthy car for free. Sometimes, we even pay for one year of car insurance plus registration,” Andros says.
Recipients are nominated through the company’s social media sites and the program is promoted in its newsletters. Marc Sebastian, company general manager, says lucky winners are chosen by a company committee, which reviews all the nominations/applications. Then he adds, “We’d give a car to all nominees if possible.”
Andros likes the one-on-one donation, because he gets to see who benefits. “Truly, when you donate to a charity, how do you know who receives what? We meet the people [we’re helping]. We see how appreciative they are,” he says. “We gave a car to a mother with two children who was taking the bus to get her kids to school and then taking another bus to get to work. We gave her a car and it changed her life.”
“The best part is, we get to see our kindness goes a long way,” says Sebastian. “Many of the people who’ve gotten the cars are still in contact with us. They’re so appreciative of what they were given and what it’s done for their lives and their kids.”
In addition to the vehicle giveaways, Blake’s also sponsors numerous community events and sports teams. “One of the things we love doing at Blake’s Auto Body is supporting our communities and our customers,” says Rebecca Brunk, director of sales and marketing.
G&C Auto Body purchased, refurbished and gave away upward of 20 vehicles in 2013, including one to a single mother whose daughter was born two months premature and who had to hitchhike to deliver pumped breast milk to her while she was in the hospital. Another recipient was a father whose daughter has a mass on her brain, requiring frequent trips to San Francisco for medical tests.
The shop plans to up that number to 48 in 2014. Recipients are nominated primarily via written requests to local radio stations (following announcements of the program), though some are posted on the G&C website or sent directly to the shops. Each month, stacks of letters are received and reviewed by Outreach Program Director Govinda Crozat and company owners Gene and Teri Crozat before recipients are chosen. These recipients often receive additional financial help in the form of gift cards for groceries, gas and even restaurants and movie theaters (so they can enjoy a night on the town); some have even been taken back-to-school shopping. Many of these families continue to receive financial help, as they’re checked in with on a regular basis to see how they’re doing.
“We’re grateful to be able to use part of our business success to help the people in our community!” says company founder, Gene Crozat. “We come into the world with no stuff, and we go out with no stuff. It’s what we do while we’re here that matters.”
As the word gets out, G&C has begun receiving help from individuals and business partners that also want to make a difference. “Just last week, I received a letter from Sonoma Media Group [owners of local radio stations KSRO-AM, Froggy 92.9 FM, 97.7 The River FM, Mix 104.9 FM and Hot 101.7 FM], telling me a listener had called in offering to help a family that had just won a car, whose son had leukemia,” says Govinda. As a response to these types of offers, the Crozat family has met with an attorney to set up a 501(c)3 to establish the Crozat Family Foundation, which will expand on these partnerships and increase the help offered to the community.
Four-legged beneficiaries
People aren’t the only ones served by hidden heroes. Some of these unassuming helpers are also very big-hearted when it comes to our four-legged friends, particularly dogs and cats.
For the last five years, Topel Winery in Hopland, which has a tasting room on Matheson Street in downtown Healdsburg, has produced the Topel Wine Tails Calendar as a benefit for an animal charity. This year’s recipient is Rotts of Friends, a rescue group that helps all sorts of animals find forever homes but is particularly focused on helping place Rottweilers, German Shepherds, Pit Bulls and other large mixed-breed dogs that became popular, were purchased by the wrong people and ended up in shelters that labeled them “bad.”
Donnis Topel and her husband, Mark, solicit candid pet photographs from winery friends and fans, then endure a long, tense selection process to decide which 12 to include. They pay all the costs of the calendar’s production and then donate every dollar from calendar sales to the selected charity.
“We’re animal lovers and this is a good way for us to give back to the community,” Donnis explains. “It’s great for us, because we get to know many of our customers through their animal. It puts us on a higher relationship level. Plus, it’s good marketing for us. So we all win: Our customers love seeing their pets as calendar stars, we share better vibes with our winery fans and the charity gets the money."
While Topel Winery isn’t in the pet business, Western Farm Center in Santa Rosa sells the food that keeps animals alive.
Nearly three years ago, Dana Gondola, Western Farm’s office manager, was talking with a friend whose mother had recently been in the hospital. The friend told her that her mother’s hospital roommate had been receiving Meals on Wheels, but instead of eating the food herself, she was feeding it to her dog because she couldn’t afford dog food—she was starving herself to feed her dog. It was one of the reasons she’d ended up in the hospital.
“It made me really sad,” Gondola says, “and it started me thinking about how we might be able to help.”
Gondola considered the plight of seniors, many of whom are homebound. “Their pets, in many cases, are the only lifeline they have. And it breaks my heart to think how selfless they are to take their own food and feed their animal instead of themselves,” she explains. “It’s just too sad, especially when I look at all the [pet] food in this store.”
So she contacted the Sonoma County Council on Aging, which runs the Meals on Wheels program, and the two parties worked out a program whereby Western Farm Center donates dog and cat food for Meals on Wheels recipients who have pets. Each month, Western Farm provides 200 pounds of cat food and 300 pounds of dog food, on average, which is delivered by Meals on Wheels volunteers. (It fluctuates depending on how many Santa Rosa residents with pets are served by Meals on Wheels.) Due to financial constraints, only those who live in Santa Rosa qualify for the “Kibbles of Kindness” program, but Gondola hopes that a little publicity might encourage other businesses to start donating for their communities.
“Like they say, it takes a village,” Gondola says. “I’m from a huge Italian family, and I’m blessed to have others to turn to. But not everyone has that.”
The ripple on the pond
If there’s a common thread among the hidden heroes we uncovered, it’s the fact that each one, in their unique way, feels compelled to make a difference.
Perhaps KZST’s Farris says it best: “Many years ago, my mom told me that life is like a great big pond, and each one of us is a tiny little drop of water,” he says. “As you go through life, try to make a ripple on the water. Not many people can, but your one and only job is to make a ripple. Make a difference. Otherwise you’re just taking up the heat and light of the world.”
Do you know a North Bay Hidden Hero? NorthBay biz wants to hear their story. Email editor@northbaybiz.com.
