Requests for help met with loving response

<p>Shirley Pippin has had a difficult winter.</p><p>The 75-year-old widow is battling cancer, recovering from major colon surgery, and in November, she lost her son who died suddenly.</p><p>So when an unexpected package arrived at the door of her Santa Rosa home on Dec. 18, she was in need of a dose of good cheer.</p><p>“I had just got back recently from my first visit to an oncologist and I wasn't feeling too great, as you might imagine,” she said. “It just came at a perfect time to life my spirits, you know?”</p><p>“It was a beautiful quilt that had been handmade, beautifully wrapped in Christmas paper. It just gave me such a lift, such a joy — to think of the kindness of people,” she said. </p><p>The sender of the gift? Secret Santa.</p><p>Pippin was just one of thousands of Sonoma County residents given an anonymous gift this season through a program that links people in need with donors who are able to buy, wrap and drop off a bit of holiday cheer. The gift can come in the form of a quilt, a Barbie or a gas card that will help someone get to work.</p><p>The Sonoma County Secret Santa program handled a record-setting number of requests for a growing number of people in need.</p><p>The program is one of the largest and most visible holiday giving programs in Sonoma County and was a barometer for giving in a time of economic hardship for many Sonoma County residents.</p><p>Some 60 local business adopted a tree covered in ornamets — each with an individual gift request. Hearts ranged from a winter coat for a 7-year-old girl, to newborn clothes for a young mother caring for a new son, to housewares for a single mom.</p><p>While individual gift giving remained even with last year, cash and business sponsors set a record — bridging the gap created when more people than ever asked for help.</p><p>“I think our generosity comes forward when we are hurting too,” said Eunice Valentine, executive director of the Volunteer Center.</p><p>Participants plucked the ornaments from the tree, filled the request and wrapped the package. The gifts were then distributed by agencies that work with the families and individuals.</p><p>As many as 15,000 heart requests were made — up from 11,000 in 2008. Totals are still being tallied by organizers.</p><p>While the number of donations in response to heart ornaments remained even with the approximately 10,000 from 2008, cash and business sponsor backing hit a record $130,000 to fill the gap created by more requests for help.</p><p>“This county was incredible,” said Marty Patton-Volz, who heads the annual program for the Volunteer Center of Sonoma County in coordination with KZST and Friedman's Home Improvement.</p><p>The economic hurt played out not only in the number of requests made to the Secret Santa program, but the tenor of the requests.</p><p>Help with heating bills, car repairs and grocery bills were on the rise, while younger children were more likely to ask for a warm coat rather than toys, officials said.</p><p>“A couple of years ago, it was more gift related,” said Mark Faulkner, a case manager/resource coordinator for Face to Face, a support program for people living with HIV/AIDS. “This year, it was economic: food, clothing, basic needs stuff.”</p><p>When Claudine Parks of Santa Rosa submitted a request to help her neighbor, a single woman who is caring for six high-needs foster children, she hoped for a few gift cards.</p><p>“I was stunned,” she said. “They filled my trunk, my back seat and my front seat. I was shaking because I thought ‘Oh my god, where am I going to put all that?'”</p><p>Parks made a point to be with her neighbor when the kids opened the gifts from their Secret Santas Christmas morning.</p><p>“I have never seen them laugh and smile so much in my life,” she said. “These are kids who are dealing with adult problems.”</p><p>Patton-Volz said the depressed economy spurred more people to ask for help, but it also ignited a different kind of response this year.</p><p>If people couldn't afford to provide gifts for three heart requests, they took one. If they couldn't do that, they volunteered their time, she said.</p><p>A call for help to assemble a slew of donated bikes was answered by hordes of people braving the cold, nimbly putting kids' rides together in a chilly hall at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.</p><p>“I had groups of people in that cold hall of flowers assembling bikes two days in a row,” she said. </p><p>“There are times when we are down on our luck and the rest of the family can't step in and help out. Help from your community, the larger community comes into play,” she said. “It makes me so proud to be part of this community.”</p><p>For Pippin, community came in the form of a blanket this year.</p><p>“This little package was such a lift for me and my spirits,” she said. “I spread it out on one of my arm chairs and admire it and think about all of the love that went into it.”</p>