Almanac Holiday Fund donations up this year Almanac Holiday Fund donations up this year (January 26, 2005)

The 10 nonprofit agencies supported by the Almanac's Holiday Fund will each receive more than $17,000 after a year of increased donations from readers.

With the help of grants from the Rotary Club of Menlo Park, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a total of $172,539 was raised this year. Two hundred and twenty Almanac readers contributed $118,904, exceeding last year's donations by more than $20,000.

For the past 12 years, the Almanac and the Peninsula Community Foundation have teamed up to raise critically needed funds for area nonprofit agencies.

The foundation helps process the donations and make the grants to the various agencies, which will each receive a one-tenth share of the total raised.

Almanac Publisher Tom Gibboney thanked the many individual donors and the organizations that provided the matching grants. "We know from experience how much the nonprofits appreciate these gifts," he said, adding, "our readers were extremely generous this year."

The recipients for this year's grants are: Shelter Network, Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula, Youth and Family Enrichment Services, Second Harvest Food Bank, St. Anthony's Padua Dining Room, the Ravenswood Family Health Center, the Service League of San Mateo County (aid for inmates and their families), the Teen Pregnancy Coalition, the Fair Oaks Community Center, and Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse (CORA) -- formerly Center for Domestic Violence Prevention and Sor Juana Ines.

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