Rose Garden Resident

Cover Story

Photograph by Vicki Thompson

Turkey Treat: Kin Love (right) delivers a Thanksgiving turkey and all the trimmings to Almaden Valley resident Betty Rivera, 78, as part of the 'Beautiful Day' weekend. The turkey-in-a-box dinners were delivered to the Via Monte-Hoffman Court neighborhood residents by members from South Hills Community Church, located in Almaden Valley. Rivera called the visit an unexpected blessing, saying she wouldn't have been able to make the holiday meal without the group's help.

Beautiful Day sparks massive community outreach

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 the Rose Garden 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 Rose Garden, the Church of the Chimes and Crossroads Community 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.

A handful of blighted homes throughout the city were given "extreme makeovers," Talbert said. Similar to ABC's Home Edition show but on a smaller scale, the "Better Homes and Gardens" project was completed with the helping hands of volunteers, who gave the homes new landscaping or a fresh coat of paint.

"We're not quite that high tech yet where we can tear a house down in six days and built it up again," Talbert added.

The residences had been cited by the city of San Jose for blight not because of negligence, but because the owners were unable to physically take care of their properties. Talbert said he was truly amazed by the businesses that stepped up the plate to meet their wish list needs.

"I think businesses want to do something heroic--like what they see Ty Pennington do [on Extreme Makeover Home Edition]," Talbert said.

In the Rose Garden neighborhood, the Neil Christie Living Center on Race Street, which serves the HIV/AIDS community in Santa Clara County, was another recipient of the weekend of kindness.

"We are just so grateful to this church [WestGate] and its people," said Marianne Gallagher, the center's program coordinator.

Church volunteers, spearheaded by site leader Denis Fastert, moved and set up living room furniture, as well as building storage cabinets that were purchased at a discount from Home Depot. Community members also stopped by Nov. 18 to drop off cash and food donations. Gallagher said what's amazing is that they didn't solicit the help, rather the church approached them, expressing an interest in working with the HIV/AIDS community.

"I live on adrenaline," Talbert said. "It's been crazy what's happening here."

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."

Teachers throughout the South Bay arrived to school on Monday morning not just to find a transformed campus or community garden, but also to discover a surprise just for them--teacher survival kits. Each kit contains a variety of classroom supplies, which the teachers sometimes have to buy on their own, along with gift cards for personal use.

"WestGate was very supportive, shared information and gave us ideas about what types of things we could do in our community," said Tony Tolbert, a pastor at Orchard Community Church, which joined the effort.

"We just want to say 'thank you' to the educators in our community, and we want them to know that they are appreciated," added Sandy Tolbert, the pastor's wife and in charge of children's ministry. "It's wonderful because the students saw that their teachers are being supported by the community."

Tony Tolbert said every kit had a handwritten card imprinted with the Beautiful Day logo. The cards, a donation by a parishioner who works at a printing company, read "From your friends at Orchard Community Church."

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.