Dear Friends,
Happy Holidays!
Thank you for all your support.
It’s a busy time of year, and we hope you’ll take some time for yourself to read some news from COTS. This is what your support makes possible. This is truly a season of light.
105 people are home for the holidays.
Thanks to this hugely generous community, we were able to open the Laure Reichek Housing Hub in mid-July to house people impacted by the Sonoma County fires of 2017.
Our goal is to house and stabilize at least 572 people over three years. We’re off to a good start: in our first five months, 105 people found permanent homes through the Hub.
Thank you, community!
COTS Holiday Free Store
Together, we worked a holiday miracle—housing 105 people since July out of our Santa Rosa office alone and more from our shelters in Petaluma! Thank you for making our work possible.
Now, we need another miracle.
We have over 200 households who are counting on us for holiday presents. 200!
People are donating like gangbusters to our Holiday Free Store, but—so far—we are not on track to serve all of our families.
If you’d like to help create another miracle, please donate gifts or gift cards to our Holiday Free Store at 223 North McDowell Blvd. in Petaluma. It’s in the Kmart shopping center, in the same pod as Starbucks. The Free Store is open for donations from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., until December 19th, on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
If those times don’t work for you, please drop off your new, unwrapped gifts at an Exchange Bank branch in Petaluma. Be sure to let the folks at the bank know that your gift is for the Free Store. The Exchange Bank is also doing a giving tree and the employees there don’t want to mix up gifts.
Volunteer Spotlight: Zarbia Perez
Zarbia Perez’s school, St. Vincent de Paul High School, requires that students volunteer in their community. Zarbia completed her required 30 hours long ago, but she’s a constant presence at COTS. Right now, the senior is a mainstay at our Holiday Free Store, decorating, sorting, organizing and arranging. She loves meeting donors. “It’s amazing to see their generosity,” she says. “They are regular people and they come in and give so much! It’s almost like they are superheroes that are willing to donate so much for others.”
The preparation is fun, but Zarbia is most looking forward to helping COTS clients shop for their families.
“I think at my age, it’s easy to live in a bubble. I’m really fortunate. I have a great family and plans for a great future. Doing something like this helps me stay aware that not everyone is so lucky. It helps me put myself in other people’s shoes. I can get an understanding of what they’re going through.” Bottom line, Zarbia says: “It feels good to help.”
How good? Well, she’s recruited friends and family to the work as well. “It’s a great way for all of us to get in the holiday spirit,” she says.
Client Profile: Housed and on a path to health
If you consulted the actuarial tables, Ricardo should be dead.
He was born into a family where no one looked out for him except to do him terrible, terrible harm. He started smoking weed at age seven and drinking at age eight. No one intervened—not at home, not in the neighborhood, not in school. “I was always trying to be accepted, always hoping to be loved,” he says, “and I never was.”
For many years, his life took a predictable route—addiction, jail, broken relationships.
But, mysteriously, something clicked for Ricardo last year at age 39. “It was when I couldn’t see my kids,” he says. “I said, ‘Let me do treatment one more time.’”
Thanks to rental assistance from COTS’ Rapid Re-Housing program, Ricardo is now living in a Sober Living home, where he’s recently been promoted to assistant manager. He’s enrolled in classes at the junior college to become a union electrician, and he’s taking care of his physical health—getting a necessary surgery so he’ll be able to work when his studies are completed.
But the most important thing he’s been doing is taking care of his mental and spiritual wellbeing. He’s working with a therapist to examine his past trauma and to chart the kind of future he wants for himself and his family. He’ll be interviewing with the electrician’s union this month and he’s looking forward to a long visit with his kids over the holidays.
Thank you, supporters, for giving us the means to help Ricardo in his extraordinary and courageous journey.
Another Miracle: Miracle Mule
Henry Thoreau said, “When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.”
No one needs the power of music more than people enduring homelessness: to fear no danger, to feel connected—if only for an hour—is a great gift.
We are so grateful to the nonprofit Bread and Roses and to its seemingly endless supply of volunteer musicians. Every month, free of charge, they bring us a new, wonderful band or soloist.
On Wednesday, the “swampy-tonk” band Miracle Mule wowed us with a Louisiana-tinged program. They were tight and funny and they made people feel GREAT!
Thanks to all our friends at Bread and Roses.
Looking for a hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind gift?
Visit Petaluma Crafterino on Sunday, December 6 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Petaluma Veterans Memorial Building, 1094 Petaluma Boulevard South. The event features 70 artisans and craftspeople and—for the 10th year in a row—the event benefits COTS!
From all of us here at COTS, thank you for all you do, and we wish you a happy holiday season!