EDITORIAL: Holiday Fund tops $160,000 EDITORIAL: Holiday Fund tops $160,000 (March 02, 2005)

Ten local nonprofit agencies will each receive a welcome check this week made possible by Almanac readers and friends who shared their good fortune during the 2004-2005 Holiday Fund drive.

Contributions to the fund totaled nearly $100,000, and with available matching grants, $160,000 was raised for 10 agencies that feed the hungry, house the homeless, and provide numerous other services to those in need. This year, 219 individuals and families contributed.

The Rotary Club of Menlo Park Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation provided matching grants, and several more came from the Peninsula Community Foundation, helping to push the total to $160,164.

The Holiday Fund is a partnership between the Almanac, the matching donors and the Peninsula Community Foundation, which processes all contributions. No fees or other charges are assessed to any donations; 100 percent of all funds raised go directly to the participating nonprofits. Each of the following agencies will receive identical checks for just over $16,000 this week:

** Boys and Girls Clubs of the Peninsula, which serves 2,200 young people ages 6 to 18 at field houses in Menlo Park's Belle Haven neighborhood, East Palo Alto and Redwood City.

** CORA (Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse) is the county's only comprehensive domestic violence prevention agency. CORA serves more than 10,000 victims of abuse each year.

** Fair Oaks Community Center serves more than 2,600 households every year with services ranging from housing information to food and crisis assistance.

** Ravenswood Family Heath Center provides medical and human services for East Palo Alto and southern San Mateo County.

** Second Harvest Food Bank is the largest collector of food on the Peninsula, which is distributed through service organizations to thousands in need.

** Service League of San Mateo County helps rebuild the lives of inmates and former inmates of the county jail by helping their children and families.

** Shelter Network provides short and long-term transitional housing and services for more than 1,000 homeless children and adults.

** St. Anthony's Padua Dining Room serves hundreds of hot meals six days a week to people in need.

** Teen Pregnancy Coalition provides comprehensive sexual education in high schools and middle schools throughout the county.

** Youth and Family Enrichment Services provides runaway and homeless youth with programs in youth development, abuse prevention and crisis intervention.

Donations from readers to the Holiday Fund were up slightly this year, but the total for the year was down about 16 percent due to a shortage of matching funds. Last year's total was $192,000.

Since its inception in 1993, the Almanac's Holiday Fund has contributed $2.3 million to a wide range of local nonprofit agencies. More than half, $1.22 million, came from readers, who have donated an average of more than $111,000 a year since 1993.

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