Charity Report – 2022

2022 was another blessed year for charity and social work. We are thankful that with Covid still amidst us and inflation, our Parish was able to make a difference in the lives of those in need both within our local community as well as in India. The generosity and charitable actions of our parish family has helped feed the hungry, clothed the poor, given shelter to the needy, and cared for the downtrodden. Our parish has disbursed $124,263 in donations during 2022.

Here are some of the highlights.

SGOCI Charity

In 2022, our SGOCI charity organization disbursed $43000 to various charity programs supporting our
local community, parts of USA and India.

❖ Women & Children’s Shelter

For the 8th consecutive year, our parish members continued to cook wholesome food and drop off dinner for the women and children at the shelter in San Leandro. This shelter provides temporary housing for 30 women and children escaping domestic violence. They depend on volunteers like us for their daily meals and we are thankful that we can continue to support this program.

❖ Farmworker Families

The ‘Center for Farmworker Families’ is a non-profit organization based in Watsonville to promote awareness about the difficult life conditions of binational farmworker families. The plight of many of these farm workers is dire, often families go hungry and struggle with basic survival needs of food, clothing, and shelter. Since December 2019, our parish family continues to support these farmers on a monthly basis by providing rice, dry beans, masa flour and cooking oil. In addition to this in the month of December, we donated blankets, Christmas toys and gifts for the children.

❖ St. Gregoriose Orthodox Scholarship Award – Arroyo High School & San Lorenzo High School $8000

The goal of this award is to identify meritorious students from difficult circumstances and provide them financial help to obtain a college education. The students identified for this award excel despite their tough personal struggles by being diligent and working hard. Students are selected based on their financial need, academic performance, personal achievements, and community service. These scholarships have been awarded to students from Arroyo High School for 4 consecutive years and to students from San Lorenzo High School for the last 2 years. We award $1000 per student selected. This year 5 students from Arroyo High School and 3 students from San Lorenzo High School were selected for the award.

❖ School Backpacks

Our parish donated 524 backpacks with school supplies to underprivileged children from the San Leandro, San Lorenzo, and Hayward school districts. After the pandemic schools reopened and for the 5th year, we were able to deliver these backpacks to mostly Title 1 schools.

❖ SB4TH (Sleeping bags for the homeless of Silicon Valley)

In 2022 we started a new initiative to provide meals for the people in need. We are working with SB4TH based in San Jose to provide meals to about 60 homeless individuals. Our parish members prepared individually wrapped meal packets which were given to the needy people based in San Jose.

❖ Christmas Meal Donation – Homeless Encampments (San Jose)

Our parish sponsored a meal for 200 homeless individuals in San Jose for the fourth consecutive year. Individually packaged meals were distributed during Christmas.

❖ School Snack Program

Our parish worked with Del Rey Elementary school and Hesperian Elementary school to provide healthy snacks to students who otherwise would go hungry. Both schools are from the San Lorenzo school district, and they are Title 1 schools.

❖ Blankets & Sleeping Bag Donations

We purchased 270 blankets and 28 sleeping bags, and these were distributed for the needy via the following organizations:
o AbodeServices
o AlamedaCountySafeParkingProgram o FremontHumanServices
o SB4TH(SleepingBagsfortheHomeless) o CenterforFarmworkerFamilies

❖ Mask Donations

A generous parish member donated 50,000 masks and these were donated to SB4TH (Sleeping Bags for the Homeless) organization catering to the homeless encampments around San Jose area.

❖ Contributions Overseas

• $1,000 donation to Prerna Special School – This is a non-profit organization under the auspices of St. Thomas Orthodox Theological Seminary, Nagpur. This institution is dedicated for serving special needs children in the area and the needy from the villages around the Nagpur Seminary.

• $1,000 donation to Mar Pachomios Charitable Society – This organization caters to shelter, education, nutrition, healthcare and recreation facilities for the poor and needy, especially those who are physically handicapped, mentally challenged and senior citizens.

• $1,000 donation to Malankara Orthodox Church Mission Society (Dayabhavan) – They have adoption centers, palliative and geriatric care for senior citizens, HIV AIDS care, medical facilities for the underprivileged, etc to name a few. This organization has focus on rehabilitation of orphan & vulnerable children, geriatric care, women empowerment, calamity relief work, HIV/ AIDS, Tuberculosis, Kidney diseases, Mental health awareness, education, hospitals for the underprivileged.

• $1,000 donation to Ardratha Relief Fund – This organization is run by OCYM youth of Kochi diocese (Ernakulam – Muluthuruthy region) for Kidney and Cancer patients.

• $1,000 donation to St. George Balikagram (Pune) – This organization assists afflicted and marginalized female children of leprosy patients and rehabilitates them. They have children from ages 3 to 20 years coming from various backgrounds as inmates of Balikagram.

• $1,000 Mar Baselios Gregorios Mercy Home – Mercy Home takes care of more than 60 elderly residents from diverse backgrounds.

• Contributions totaling $6750 were made to 14 individual families in India who faced physical infirmities, financial difficulties, or unforeseen circumstances.
Spiritual Organizations:

❖ MMVS:

• Members gathered twice in October2022 for the event “FeedtheHomeless’ which was organized for the ‘Sleeping bags for the homeless of Silicon Valley’ organization. They prepared lunch bags with individually wrapped meals, water, fruits, and toiletry items and distributed it amongst the homeless in San Jose.

• OurMMVSmemberssponsored15sewingmachinesforwomenfromfinanciallystruggling families in Kerala. At an event held at St. Thomas Higher Secondary school in Kadampanad on June 3rd, 2022, the well-known wildlife conservationist Vava Suresh distributed the machines to the women.

• MMVSmembersidentifiedandsponsoredtheeducationofanursingstudent.Thisstudent came from a family facing financial and medical crises. 2 lakh rupees was raised and donated towards her fees.

❖ Sunday School

The 2022 Sunday School academic year started with a charity event “Feed the Homeless” held on August 13th, 2022. Children, teachers, and volunteers participated and prepared 60 lunch bags. This event was organized for the organization ‘Sleeping bags for the homeless of Silicon Valley’.
Angel Tree
Angel Tree is a program of Prison Fellowship that serves incarcerated parents. We facilitated donating Christmas presents to 40 children on behalf of their parents who are currently incarcerated.

❖ Creative Hands

Creative Hands started out as a small event with learning crochet and cupcake decorations for the MMVS spiritual group in 2019. It now spans across all spiritual organizations – Sunday School, Focus, MGOCSM, MMVS. In 2022, 35 scarves were crocheted by a small group of enthusiastic members and donated to BACC (Bay Area Cancer Connection, Palo Alto).

Homes for the Homeless (India) $81875

Aside from the charitable programs, Individual donors from our parish supported the building of 8 homes for poverty-stricken families last year. Some of these families lived under tarps or sheds and were exposed to the harsh elements of nature for many years.

We are grateful to Ardra Charitable Society members, H.G. Dr. Yuhannon Mar Chrysosthomos, and H.G Yuhanon Mor Meletius who are leading the effort and doing commendable work of helping poor and needy families in Kerala.

A huge thank you to our SGOCI families who made a difference in the lives of those who are in need.

Proverbs 19:17 The one who is gracious to the poor lends to the Lord, and the Lord will repay him for his good deed.