The annual holiday party is Compass’ most highly anticipated event of the year. The event is the culmination of months of hard work by Compass staff and a small army of amazing volunteers. The party offered something for every member of the family. The children loved meeting our very engaging Santa Claus, who was played by long time Compass volunteer Todd Kahl. The kids also had the chance to win great prizes at our winter carnival, organized by the staff at Compass Family Resource Center.
Thanks to generous donations, each family also got to take home a copy of the new holiday classic, “Olive, the Other Reindeer” which was the inspiration for the beautiful decorations created by the amazing team at Redmond Aldrich Design. “Chef Alex” Tamburro and his staff cooked up a chili feast for the families. In addition to coordinating the meal for the holiday party for the past four years, Chef Alex also teaches a regular children’s cooking class at Compass Family Shelter.
This year a record 400 parents and children attended the party. All of us at Compass are so grateful for the generosity and dedication of our community. You helped us make this event such a success!
The holiday season is about giving. Each year through our Adopt-a-Family project, hundreds of generous donors from the local community have the chance to make holiday wishes come true for Compass families. The magic of the season is reflected in the generosity of the many donors who enthusiastically buy, wrap and deliver gifts for their adopted families. Tears of joy and hugs all around are common when our client families pick up their gifts.
Thanks to an outpouring of community support, Compass adopted a record 450 families this year. In addition to dolls, Legos and lots and lots of Play-Doh, donors helped families meet some very special needs with gifts that will make a huge impact in their everyday lives.
Shoes for Emily Reyna Diaz’s wish list had a special request. “My daughter, Emily, has a leg condition that requires regular physical therapy. The shoes that she needs are very expensive and not covered by insurance. We could really use help to buy her shoes.” The last time that the family had to buy these shoes, they cost $1,400, a fortune for them. Emily’s parents managed to pay for them by getting second jobs and borrowing money from family members.
Realizing that $1,400 would be a tremendous amount to ask for, Reyna said she would be very happy if someone could help with even a small part of the cost. Adopt-a-Family donor Bixby Jamison and friends, however, made it their mission to try to raise the entire $1,400. Through their generosity they were able to raise more than $1,000, and Emily is well on the way to getting the shoes that she needs.
Laila and her mother smelled smoke when they entered their apartment, but they were not prepared to see flames shooting out of the closet in the bedroom that the family shared. Her mom, Dianna, then eight months pregnant with her little brother, pulled Laila from the room. Laila’s dad, home early from work for the first time in months, burst into the apartment just as Dianna was starting to worry that she would not be able to get her daughter out by herself. The three escaped unharmed, but the fire, which started in the trash chute adjacent to their apartment, destroyed everything and Laila was inconsolable at the loss of her turtle and goldfish.
The family spent the night at a distant relative’s house. The next morning Laila didn’t want to go outside, but her mom knew that Compass Children’s Center was the best place she could be that day. She knew that the center, where Laila had been enrolled since she was one-year old, would know how to help her daughter and wouldn’t care if she came in her pajamas and without shoes.
“It doesn’t matter if you have shoes,” she told Laila, “You love to play barefoot at school.”
When Laila and Dianna arrived at Compass Children’s Center that morning, staff immediately knew that something was wrong. After getting the story and sharing many hugs, the Compass Children’s Center staff swung into action. With the help of the center’s Family Service Coordinator, Dianna and her husband worked with the Red Cross to find temporary accommodations for the family. On-site play therapy was also immediately coordinated for Laila to help her process the traumatic event. Laila’s primary teacher also carefully monitored her behaviors and moods to ensure that Laila always felt secure and loved.
By the end of that first day, Laila had enough clothing and shoes for a week. Within a month, the Children’s Center staff had coordinated donations and services to ensure that the family had a safe place to live, clothing, everything that they would need for the arrival of the new baby and the ongoing support necessary to move forward.
According to Dianna, her daughter has finally started to smile again and she credits much of her family’s stability and good health to the extraordinary efforts of the Compass Children’s Center staff. Although it will be a surprise to Laila when she graduates from the center in a few months, the staff let her parents in on a little secret that awaits her: a fat photo album of Laila and her parents throughout their years at Compass Children’s Center.
Until 2002, Adrian Allen was working a good paying job in construction.
“I went to school for construction,” she says. “Graduated at the top of my class. I was the only female on an all-men’s crew.”
But then she developed thoracicoutlet syndrome, a rare condition that creates terrible pain in the neck and shoulder, and she was left unable to work. After cycling through four or five less physically-demanding positions, she was eventually forced to go on disability.
“Times got hard to where I couldn’t afford the utilities anymore,” Allen says. “It had gotten so bad that I couldn’t live like that any longer." Allen had lived without power for several months and hot water for almost two years.
Mission Local | Homeless Family Forced to Live in Old Volvo A family shares their experience of living in thier car. With more than 250 currently on the Compass Connecting Point waiting list for family shelter and a average six month wait for a placement, more and more families must reamin in less than ideal living situations with their children for longer periods of time.
Terrilyn is the mom of a teenage son who has been on the Compass Connecting Point waiting list for family shelter for five months. She provided listeners with insight to the challenges of supporting her son's education in the face of unstable living consitions.
Update: We are happy to report that thanks to the generosity of our community, Terrilyn and her family will be able to remain in their hotel room for at least another week. Compass will continue to support this family to help them achieve long-term stability.
Olive, the Other Reindeer will be the guest of honor at this year's annual holiday party for Compass' client families.
We need your help to make it take flight!
Volunteer! UPDATE!! Thanks to an overwhelming response, we have filled all of our volunteer spots for the holiday party. We truly appreciate your interest and hope that you will join us for a future volunteer activity.
Donate a copy of “Olive the Other Reindeer” for the annual client Holiday Party. The whimsical illustrations in the book are the inspiration for the party décor, and we would love to give every family a copy of the book to enjoy. Donations should be received by December 16 and can be dropped off or delivered to: Compass Family Services, 995 Market Street, 5th floor, San Francisco, CA 94103.
Other ways to get involved for the holidays!
Help serve a holiday brunch at Compass Family Shelter.
Thursday, December 22, 10am – 2pm, Compass Family Shelter, 626 Polk Street
Help prepare and serve brunch and make gingerbread houses with the kids
5-8 volunteers needed Update!! 4 spaces remaining
Donate a gift card to bring holiday cheer to the more than 250 families currently on the Compass Connecting Point waiting list for shelter. Popular choices are Safeway, Walgreens, Payless Shoe Source and Old Navy. Gift cards may be sent to: Compass Family Services, 49 Powell Street, 3rd floor, San Francisco, CA 94102
Adopt-a-Program – We love to foster creativity, but it takes a lot of glitter! A donation of craft supplies and educational materials will support our children’s programs at Compass Clara House and Compass Family Shelter.
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to sign up today!
Many thanks to Redmond Aldrich Design for their generosity and beautiful concept for our holiday party.
Coverage from a variety of outlets highlighting the record breaking number of families seeking shelter in San Francisco. In November, a record 267 families were on the Compass Connecting Point waiting list for family shelter. Families currently face a 6-7 month wait for a room in one of the city's three family shelters.
A look into the life of a single mom working hard to find stability for her children in the face of incredible odds. The recent surge in the waiting list for family shelter in San Francisco compounds the challenges facing this family.
Grandma Cora and Grandpa Eddy provide children at Compass Children's Center with unconditional love. The husband and wife team have been volunteering at the center for six years and have been grandparents to hundreds of Compass children.
At Compass we know that promoting early literacy is vital to ensure success in school and beyond for our youngest clients. To help parents and their children learn to love reading, Compass Family Resource Center hosts a weekly story hour. The wildly popular event features stories, songs, dancing and plenty of Cheerios!
For the second year in a row, the story hour group participated in Jumpstart's Read for the Record, a national event to raise awareness for the need of quality early childhood education for all children. This year's book, Llama Llama Red Pajama, was the perfect companion for a cold and rainy San Francisco morning. The children got cozy in new pajamas and enjoyed a festive story hour hosted by The Cat in the Hat.
Although he doesn't always come as The Cat in the Hat, each week is a special occasion and an opportunity to build community for Patrick Sosa, Early Childhood Educator at Compass Family Resource Center. He says of the event:
This group actually began 4 years ago at Red Hill Books in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood.The Story Hour started as a small event to meet the needs of the community, but within two years, each Story Hour was filled to capacity with children and their caregivers who danced, sang and ate plenty of Cheerios! The event even made 7x7 magazine’s Top 100 Things To Do in SF Before You Die. This celebration of community led to my desire to reach out further and I was thrilled to be hired to re-create this at Compass.
The miracle of community is that with intention of the heart anything can be created. The majority of participants for Story Hour are monolingual Spanish-speaking families. Many of the children speak English in school but not necessarily at home. This created a challenge for me, a monolingual English-speaker! My love for music became the key, so by learning traditional Spanish songs I began to reach the families. In turn, I began reading books in both Spanish and English. This confidence to communicate in a different language was a direct result of the efforts of the community to encourage, accept and teach interdependently.
While I stumble through a Spanish version of Corduroy the parents teach and guide me through the material. When I read them Llama Llama Red Pajama in English, they learn new bedtime words and phrases such as, “Please stop all this llama-drama!” We laugh and learn from each other’s mistakes along the way and the kids benefit from experiencing a peacefully integrated fun and learning community event!
Donate a costume and help a homeless child’s imagination set sail.
Helping families celebrate special occasions is important. It’s about giving homeless and extremely low-income parents a chance to spend time with their children outside of the stress of their everyday lives and giving disadvantaged children the same experiences and childhood memories as their peers.
Last year Compass helped 266 children express their inner ghoul, superhero and princess.
Costume donations should be: • New (or good as new) • For children of all ages • Not too scary, please!
Your support will make sure that Compass’ youngest clients don’t miss out on one of childhood's greatest joys.
You may prefer to shop for costumes online and ship them directly to Compass. Online retailers Cheap Halloween Costumes and Costume Discounters both have reasonably priced costumes that are very popular.
Our shipping address is: Compass Family Services 995 Market Street, 5th floor San Francisco, CA 94103
Please call
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Veronica to arrange a time to drop-off your donations in person.
Host a costume drive!
Consider hosting a costume drive at your school, office or place of worship. If you have questions about getting started, please contact us. You can also download a flyer from our website to get your friends, family and coworkers excited about participating.
Please plan to conclude your costume drive by Thursday, October 27.
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Veronica to arrange a drop-off time.
Donate a costume and help a homeless child’s imagination set sail.
