Remember those posts to Announce in early November about upcoming service projects? The projects served two of UUCPA’s Justice Partners, Onyxx Village Connection and LifeMoves, and were sponsored by the Social Justice Action Council and Children and Youth Religious Education committees (and you, indirectly 🙂). If you wondered whatever happened with those projects, or if you participated (thank you again!), read on.
Ten of us packed into the church kitchen the morning of November 8 to make sack lunches for Onyxx Village Connection. Our organized scramble Saturday morning produced 64 healthful and nutritious (mostly, lol) lunches. We finished just in time to meet up with Onyxx at the East Palo Alto Senior Center for delivery.
Thandiwe and Sylvia from Onyxx and the people we fed were so appreciative of the meals we prepared. We walked and drove with Thandiwe and Sylvia through East Palo Alto and Redwood City to deliver the lunches to unhoused men and women in parks, on sidewalks, at the public library, in apparently empty lots, and in tents by the side of the road, finishing in Redwood City at 1:45 p.m. Onyxx normally brings food to people only on weekdays–Thandiwe and Sylvia need time off too!–so this bonus Saturday was a welcome surprise for their clients. Thandiwe posted about it here:
A heartfelt thank you also goes to some of our youngest community members, the Red and Teal classes (pre-K through 5th grade), and to the dedicated adults who on Sunday, November 16, helped to build holiday craft kits for residents of LifeMoves. (Shout-out to Edie Keating and Sarah and Allie Becker, who also came an hour earlier and/or stayed an hour longer to get all the kits finished!)
Our intrepid helpers built two types of kit again this year, a youth kit and an adult kit. The contents vary slightly from past years’ kits, as they depend on what amazing deals we can find each year. 🙂
Here is one of the youth kits we assembled:
The adult kits had markers instead of crayons, more detailed coloring pages, a mechanical pencil and ballpoint pen, and no toys or diffraction paper (sorry, adults). All of the kits had colored pencils, card stock, construction paper, a composition book, scissors, a #2 pencil, a pencil sharpener, a glue stick, sticker labels, fancy envelopes, tie-dye origami paper, kirigami and origami projects, coloring pages, mazes, crossword puzzles, and other activities.
The approximately 130 craft kits went to single adults and families living in transitional housing at two sites in San Jose, Villa and Georgia Travis House. These are two of the original LifeMoves sites and don’t get as much love as some of the sites closer to us. Fortunately, we were able to deliver the craft kits a couple of days before Thanksgiving, so people could start enjoying them together over the holiday.
The craft kits, LifeMoves told us, “are not just the icing on the cake–but [for] our families and singles there are not a lot of things to do after dinner and on the weekends so they are nice ways for the clients to be engaged.”
 Many thanks again to everyone who helped with these service projects, to the Social Justice Action Council and Children and Youth Religious Education committees for sponsoring them, and to all of UUCPA’s donors for supporting the church and making service projects like these possible!