Back Row: Peter Proud-Madruga, Diana Proud-Madruga, AnaPaula de-Amorim, Glenn de-Amorim, Stinson McElhinney, Andrew Proud-Madruga, Cecil Shuffler

Front Row: Jane Garland, Kelly Tipton, Muriel McElhinney, Maria Shirley, Paulette Shuffler, Rachel Freitas

I have to give credit where credit is due. One of my board members, Kathleen Tucker, suggested our organization apply for a grant from the Sempra Energy Foundation for community outreach. That was all it took. Many of the people we interview are senior citizens and they tend to be alone. We saw this as our opportunity to serve our community.

We submitted our proposal for a grant on October 27th. We decided that whether we got a grant or not, this was the right thing to do and we moved forward with our plans immediately.

The main components to our success in our community outreach effort included volunteers, donors and of course senior citizens. To be more specific, we were looking for senior citizens who would be without family, homebound or bedridden. We wanted to make those people’s Thanksgiving day a little brighter.

Thanks to the generous support of Marie Callendar’s, we would be able to provide up to 100 delicious Thanksgiving meals. All we needed to do now was sign up senior citizens, raise funds through donations and get volunteers to help us deliver the meals. Going into this, we thought our biggest challenge would be finding volunteers and raising the funds. It turns out that finding senior citizens was the hardest part.

It started with phone calls to seniors we know live by themselves. Under normal circumstances, they would be the ideal candidates. However, Thanksgiving is the one day of the year when family really comes together and doesn’t leave anyone out of the picture. The first phone calls we made had us realizing that this was going to take some real perseverance to find them. While every phone call ended with the person informing me they’d be with family, I was heartened and encouraged thanks to the feedback I was getting. Everyone kept telling us what a great idea it was. We invited them to spread the word with us and, if they thought of anyone else, to call us.

Fifty phone calls later, we had zero people on our list.

Was it that we were callling the wrong people? Were they just too proud to accept? Too shy? Were they afraid? We didn’t know the answer, but we knew from all our friends and family that we told about this project that giving up on finding them was not an option.

The phone call campaign was not working and we needed to take extra steps to look elsewhere. That’s when we contacted San Diego Hospice, St. Agnes church, Christ Church Unity and St. Charles of Borromeo to let them know about our program. We also worked with the Sociedade do Espirito Santo (S.E.S).

Part of the problem was that we got a late start. The other issue was that many people did not know who PRESD was. As our name gets out in the community, this will become less of an issue.

Another thought occurred to us as we were looking for senior citizens. We thought, wouldn’t it be fun to have something youthful and vibrant to go along with these meals? Without a doubt, the answer was yes. With that in mind, PRESD visited Cabrillo Elementary, Dewey Elementary, Sunset View Elementary and Silver Gate Elementary schools. We asked if their students could make some hand-made Thanksgiving cards. The idea was a hit and we received 212 colorful, heartfelt cards to give to our senior citizens.

In our efforts to find drivers, we sent out an email blast about the outreach program and, before we knew it, we had ten volunteers. Donations from community members as well as from the commercial sector rolled in. Point Loma Community Bank donated $250. Plus, that grant that we applied for from the Sempra Energy Foundation; we got it!
Thanks to the partnership with the S.E.S, we now had 3 meals to deliver. We had plenty of money, plenty of volunteers, lots of cards and still hardly anyone to deliver meals to and time was running out. Just two weeks to go now.

There is a big learning curve to a project the first time around, and we learned a lot this year. Gaining trust is a non-trivial issue. It only seems to reason that people that advocate us, take on the liability should something happen to them through their recommendation. Initially, San Diego Hospice, while honored by our gesture, wasn’t sure how it would work. The first suggestion was for us to deliver the meals to their distribution center. When we expressed to them how much we wanted to be more of a part of these seniors’ lives, San Diego Hospice went above and beyond the call of duty. They committed to finding 50 meals for us to deliver. In order to allow us to deliver the meals ourselves, they took it upon themselves to call individuals and get their verbal permission to allow us to do so. That took time on their part, a lot of it. The same thing happened at Christ Church Unity. Reverend Blair Tabor personally called families and found 10 meals for us to deliver. And, our spread the word campaign was slowly working. Individuals started calling us and requesting meals.
This was working out after all!

The cutoff for ordering meals was noon the day before Thanksgiving. Marie Callendar’s needed to know ahead of time since Thanksgiving is a crazy day for them. At the end of the day, we delivered 90 meals, 90% of our goal.

With only 90 meals to give out and 212 Thanksgiving Cards, volunteers met at Point Loma Convalescent and handed out some of those beautiful Thanksgiving Cards. Another volunteer was sent to Marie Callendar’s to pick up the meals. Ever try and fit 90 salads, 90 pieces of pumpkin pie and 90 turkey dinners in one car? Turns out it takes at least two cars. Luckily, we were able to get a second volunteer up to the restaurant in a hurry.

At 11am on Thanksgiving Day, 13 volunteers met at the parking lot of the S.E.S. hall. Following a short thank-you speech, these volunteers: Maria and Linda Shirley, AnaPaula and Glenn de-Amorim, Jane Garland, Paulette and Cecil Shuffler, Kelly Tipton, Andrew, Diana and Peter Proud-Madruga, Muriel and Stinson McElhinney and Rachel Freitas. They delivered 90 meals to seniors living in Sherman Heights, Webster, City Heights, Mission Valley, Clairemont, Point Loma, Ramona, Lakeside, Santee, El Cajon and La Mesa.

Each home received a handmade Thanksgiving card, a delicious turkey dinner consisting of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, gravy, a side salad and a slice of pumpkin pie. What a great day as volunteers were happy to help and recipients were happy to see a friendly face and enjoy a delicious meal delivered right to their door.

Our meal recipients were happy. Our volunteers thanked us for organizing the event. We thanked them for helping us make it such a success. We couldn’t help but smile when our volunteers offered to assist us again next year. That left us no doubt. It’s official. This will be an annual event.

See you next Thanksgiving!

PRESD would like to thank the following teachers and their students for providing such beautiful Thanksgiving Cards: