Holiday Fund: Fair Oaks Community Center connects people with services (December 08, 2004)

Center clocks 100,000 visits last year, from kids to seniors

By Marion Softky

Almanac Staff Writer

On a Tuesday afternoon after Thanksgiving, patient parents and wiggly kids pack the lobby of the Fair Oaks Community Center on Middlefield Road in Redwood City.

These are low-income families who have come to sign up for the center's holiday program. Later this month, Santas -- in the form of Redwood City police and firefighters - will deliver toys and books to their homes, mostly in Redwood City and North Fair Oaks, For 30 years, the center has been providing this and literally hundreds of other services in the diverse and primarily low-income communities surrounding the mural-fronted building on Middlefield Road at the Redwood City boundary. It also serves low-income residents of Atherton, Woodside and Portola Valley.

The Fair Oaks Community Center is about connections. Besides serving some 2,600 families each year with basic social and emergency services, it provides free space to 30 or more outside agencies and organizations that help clients with an extraordinary range of needs.

"We get more than 100,000 visits per year," says executive director Teri Chin, who is also human services manager for Redwood City.

The center also hosts a subsidized child-care program, a full senior center, and classrooms for both middle and high school students who have been suspended or expelled from their regular schools.

"You need to take a time out from school? You take it here," says Ms. Chin.

A tour of the center with Ms. Chin is dizzying. A large room with a dozen cubicles provides room for meetings on housing, immigration status, legal assistance, health, juvenile probation, and more. There is a multipurpose room for classes, meals, and exercise programs; a food distribution center; three classrooms; a computer lab; and even a garden with picnic tables and raised beds for the seniors.
Cancer nightmare

During Livier Vargas' three-year nightmare with cancer, the Fair Oaks Community Center has been a lifeline.

Ms. Vargas came to North Fair Oaks early in 2002 for an operation for breast cancer at the county hospital. She brought her husband, Heleodoro, and two children. More than two years later, she has had some spreading of her cancer and several sessions of chemotherapy.

Ms. Vargas first came to the center for bus passes so she could get to the hospital in San Mateo and to chemotherapy in Daly City. Case manager Claudia Ramirez arranged for the family to get a monthly box of food. She also helped Ms Vargas get a driver's license so she could get a car. Now she drives herself to treatments and the children to Taft School.

Early this fall, when Ms. Vargas was heading into another session of chemotherapy, the fleas in their North Fair Oaks garage threatened her health -- as did the chemicals that might eradicate them, she says in an interview.

The center arranged with Shelter Network for the family to move to Haven Family House in Menlo Park. They love it. Mr. Vargas still works in landscaping, the kids get projects and help with homework, and the family is saving for a home.

Ms. Vargas hopes the last treatment is successful.

"I am very thankful. I hope in the future to buy a home," she says.

"That's something we can help with," says Ms. Ramirez.
Needs

The Fair Oaks Community Center is facing a tight budget but has not yet had to cut core services, says Ms. Chin. Its $1 million operating budget comes primarily from Redwood City and San Mateo County, but some of its partners who provide other services are hurting.

The center needs both money and volunteers, Ms. Chin says. Donations from the Holiday Fund go to direct help for clients, such as bus passes, rental assistance, holiday gifts, motel vouchers, or food. She also hopes to be able to fund a good sound system for the multipurpose room, which is used by so many programs.
HOLIDAY FUND

Donations to the Almanac's Holiday Fund help the Fair Oaks Community Center.
INFORMATION

The Fair Oaks Community Center is located at 2600 Middlefield Road in Redwood City. For information, call Teri Chin at 780-7500, or enter "Fair Oaks Community Center" in a search engine, such as Google.

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