‘Being human and humane ... is powerful.’ Book of Dreams readers show their generosity

It will be a Christmas season to remember for eight homeless women staying at the Meadowview Center shelter for women in south Sacramento.

After upwards of years living on the streets, they woke up Christmas morning with a roof over their heads. And thanks to the giving spirit of The Sacramento Bee’s Book of Dreams readers, each is also celebrating with some holiday decorations of their own: Christmas art displays made with their own two hands and healthy imaginations.

At their regularly scheduled art therapy class just days before Christmas, the women were surprised to see what awaited them: a smorgasbord of brightly colored, holiday-themed materials to decorate their tree and paint a backdrop.

Leaned against a picnic table was a large bag of 10 x 20-inch canvasses they could use to paint the backdrop. On top were gel pens, markers, fine line pencils, tempera paint and glitter in every imaginable color.

Ornaments were scattered across a second table nearby. They included holiday beads on strings, shiny glass balls, polka dot ribbons, artificial snow-covered twigs, tiny trains, tinsel and a rainbow assortment of mini pom poms.

A few glue guns, perched on a third table, stood ready for the art project to begin.

Sonja Valencia was the first to pick up a canvas and root through the supplies to begin her project.

“I am going to write ‘Merry Xmas’ on it,” she said, holding the canvas in one hand and several markers in the other. “I’m going to decorate around it as a present for my 14-year-old daughter. I don’t have any money in my pocket but I sure can make something for her and right after (making) this, I will go to her house to give it to her.”

Elisa Jacobson Salazar scooped up the fine-tipped art pens to sketch a detailed whimsical snow castle that she planned to put up in the shelter’s living quarters.

“I like drawing elves, fairies and spirits,” she said, all part of a theme of comic books she had earlier created. Like Salazar, Monique Moore seemed pleased to have so much with which to work. It reminded her how doing art makes her feel.

“I love it. It’s good therapy. It makes me lose myself in my imagination,” she said as she began to assemble her materials.

The Meadowview Women’s Shelter is one of 10 community organizations highlighted in this year’s Sacramento Bee Book of Dreams effort. For more than 33 years, residents throughout the Sacramento area have stepped up to help people with some holiday joy and a financial boost when they needed it most.

Every year, hundreds of donors dig deep into their pocketbooks, often motivated after reading one or more stories featured in the Book of Dreams series. This year is no exception, with readers contributing well over $120,000 so far.

With the pandemic drying up the ability of nonprofits to raise funds through traditional means, organizations – including those featured in the Book of Dreams – universally found meeting their budgets difficult this year. According to the national Peer to Peer Professional Forum, revenues from walkathons – a common fundraising tool – were down by 40 to 50 percent in 2020.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of people locally giving of their hearts and their pocketbooks.

When asked if giving this year is more important than others, Sacramento donor Randy Getz didn’t hesitate.

“I am not sure it is more important than any other year, but it might be,” he said. “Even though my own economic circumstance is not what it was before the pandemic, my giving is not in any meaningful way slacking. We are more aware now – as if we needed to be – that there are an awful lot of people who for a long time have been living on the edge…

“I think it is important that each of us be that person who provides that assistance. I found that when I am generous to someone else, in a monetary sense or otherwise, something wonderful or salutary happens to me …. Showing kindness to others, being human and humane to someone else is powerful.”

For Miles Cooley, a Los Angeles entertainment attorney who spent a few years in the Sacramento Children’s Home as a foster child and who received holiday gifts from the community then, said giving back as an adult to the foster care facility was important to him.

When he was interviewed several weeks ago for the Book of Dreams feature on the home’s need for laptops and tablets for the 20 boys living there, he immediately asked where to send donations.

“It’s a pleasure to be in a position to help,” he said. “The kids deserve to know that people care about them and their futures.”

Many readers were also moved to help abandoned, abused or disabled cats at the Fat Kitty City no-kill shelter in El Dorado Hills, which is seeking funds to treat sick cats, build cold weather shelters and provide wet food for up to 600 cats the shelter will house in 2021.

“I have a special attachment,” said Marie Mark of Pioneer who was among the many who donated to Fat Kitty City. “In 2016, there were some kittens near our home and when I called a gentleman at (a local private rescue nonprofit) about getting some help, I learned there was no one who trapped up county in Amador County, so he showed me how to work a trap, I started doing it, and found a whole colony and got hooked.”

The local community has been generous helping that organization in her area, she said, and she wanted to help the shelter named in Book of Dreams because she can appreciate the need.

There is still time to donate to the 10 organizations featured in stories this year as well as to numerous other community organizations that also are seeking help from the Book of Dreams.

All donations are tax deductible and none of the money received will be used for administrative costs.

The Book of Dreams fund is administered by the Sacramento Region Community Foundation. If you donate online, the foundation name will appear on your statement. If you have additional questions, please call the Book of Dreams line at 916-556-5667.

Following are the 2020 Book of Dreams’ featured wishes:

▪ The Sacramento Children’s Home. Seeking $12,000 for laptops, tablets and recreational/game room equipment for 20 foster boys.

▪ 916Ink. Seeking $5,000 for a patio cover over an outdoors creative writing garden for children.

▪ Fat Kitty City, Northern California’s only nonkill feline rescue home. Seeking $6,000 for cans of wet cat food, insulated cat houses and a building to care for sick cats.

▪ North Highlands Christian Food Ministry. Seeking $8,000 for a year’s supply of toiletry kits to hand out to people experiencing homelessness.

▪ Red Cross Gold Country region. Seeking $3,900 to hold a blood drive next year.

▪ Adopt an Elder Foundation. Seeking $5,000 to cover a portion of the cost of care for at-risk seniors living in assisted care facilities.

▪ WEAVE. Seeking $3,500 to create educational videos that help victims of domestic violence navigate the court system.

▪ Wellness Within. Seeking $5,000 to purchase equipment and cover production costs to put on a variety of online programs for cancer patients, including podcasts, support groups and live classes in meditation, yoga, nutrition, art and cooking.

▪ Immigration Integration & Empowerment. Seeking $6,500 to buy 25 laptops for newly arrived Afghan women to attend virtual driving permit classes.

▪ Meadowview Navigation Center, operated by Volunteers of America. Seeking $1,000 to acquire art and other creative expression materials for women experiencing homelessness.