By Bruce Barton

BRUCE BARTON/TOWN CRIER Tom Myers, left, executive director of the Mountain View-Los Altos Community Services Agency, talks about CSA’s partnership this year with the Palo Alto Chapter of the American Red Cross, led by Executive Director Trish Bubenik, right.

Two major themes seemed to resonate at the annual “Hometown Heroes” breakfast held Friday by the Mountain View-Los Altos Community Services Agency: One is that even in well-off Los Altos, people are needy; the other is that the need is never-ending and the community can always do more.

“There are always children in need, there are always people in need,” said this year’s “hometown hero,” longtime CSA volunteer and homeless advocate Gisela Daetz. “There is never a time when we can say we’ve done enough.”

Speaking before a packed house of residents and corporate supporters at the Crowne Plaza Cabaña Hotel in Palo Alto, CSA Executive Director Tom Myers talked of needy senior citizens “in one of the wealthiest areas in the country.” He cited statistics that showed 25 percent of the Los Altos population is older than 60 and 10 percent older than 75. With people living longer, he said, his non-profit social-services group needs to focus even more on aging issues.

Keynote speaker Roy Lave, a founder and executive director of the Los Altos Community Foundation, added that Los Altos “isn’t always what it seems,” saying, “There are many in our community who don’t share the benefit of that wealth.”

Myers and CSA Associate Director Maureen Wadiak said the agency has been successful helping seniors and other needy through such programs as its food and nutrition center.

Wadiak singled out 100-year-old Inez Cochran as a recipient of CSA’s help. To help her continue to live independently, CSA personnel provided her health insurance and nutritious food through its Meals on Wheels program.

“The goal is that older people can have a dignified life,” she said, while saving on medical and nursing home costs.

Myers noted that, among this year’s CSA events, its Alpha Omega homeless program transitioned this year from offering temporary shelter at local churches to focusing on finding permanent housing. He also recognized a new partnership with the Palo Alto Chapter of the American Red Cross, also serving the Los Altos-Mountain View area. The partnership arose from a June fire that gutted an apartment complex on Latham Avenue in Mountain View leaving 19 families homeless.

“We were able to assure the residents that we would work together to help them,” said Trish Bubenik, executive director of the Red Cross chapter.

Daetz, a native of Hamburg, Germany, and a recipient of CARE packages in the aftermath of World War II, has volunteered in CSA’s homeless programs for several years. She held up a recent article about the opening of an 88-unit homeless shelter in Palo Alto and urged CSA to take the lead in doing the same for Los Altos-Mountain View.

“Let’s have a vision of building an Alpha Omega opportunity center for these … people who sleep on the streets,” she said. “They don’t need a handout, but a hand up.”

Microsoft TV also was honored as a “hometown hero” corporate sponsor in recognition of employee donations and volunteer time to CSA’s food and nutritional center.

Myers noted that CSA will be celebrating its 50th anniversary next year. It originally formed as the Mountain View Welfare Council.

For more information, call 968-0836 or visit www.csacares.org.