By Eliza Ridgeway

Catherine, left, spends quality time writing with Laura, a San Jose State student who mentors at Sunday Friends.

The Town Crier Holiday Fund annually disburses financial donations to area non-profit organizations that benefit those in need. This year, 17 organizations will receive funds. This week, we profile three of those non-profits: Sunday Friends, Challenge Learning Center and Career Closet.

Sunday Friends

Every weekend, the cafeteria and schoolyard of Lowell Elementary School in San Jose are transformed, overflowing with families and young volunteers gathered together by the non-profit Sunday Friends.

Children read, play and cook and parents joggle babies while chatting, writing and studying English. The secular organization represents a spectrum of ethnicities, ages and family backgrounds, yet it also feels like a social club – one that wants to welcome you.

The San Jose-based organization provides a supportive environment for low-income families to learn and practice social and economic life skills.

On a recent Sunday, young men from St. Francis High School helped little ones practice their writing as children grated potatoes for latkes and painted watercolor calendars as Christmas presents. Moms wrote thank-you letters to donors and board member Carlos Barrientos presided over Sunday Friends’ most unique feature – its bank. For every task they complete, families earn credits they can spend at Sunday Friends’ store, which stocks the staples of daily living. Diapers are the most popular item, but dish soap, laundry detergent and paper towels also go fast.

This time of year, holiday gifts fill one of the program’s two cargo containers and volunteers set up wrapping stations. The San Jose Unified School District houses the permanent containers and the weekend program free of charge.

This year Sunday Friends added an increased emphasis on nutrition, working with the San Jose State Nutrition Department to teach about healthful eating.

“It’s not just a matter of economics, it’s a matter of education,” said Associate Director Michael Hobson. “We’re not a quick fix, not disaster relief. We’re about long-term solutions to help families break the generational cycle of poverty.”

Sunday Friends has an annual budget of approximately $215,000.

For more information, visit www.sundayfriends.org or call (408) 793-0441.

Challenge Learning Center

The Mountain View-based Challenge Learning Center had a significant victory this year when it secured a ropes-course facility in Sunnyvale to use in its work with at-risk youth. The center teaches leadership skills, team-building and problem-solving to Los Altos and Mountain View teens.

Up to now the non-profit had to organize time and transportation to get its groups to courses in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Now, they can help students take flight in Baylands Park. The city of Sunnyvale, which built the long-unused ropes course a decade ago, formed a partnership with the center.

“I can’t tell you what a big step it was for us to get this,” said Emily Johnson, board member and former executive director. “We’re hoping that because it’s more accessible, we will be able to increase our participants by at least 50 percent.”

Challenge Learning Center trains approximately 2,500 seventh-12th-grade students on an annual budget of $200,000, partnering with local schools and social services, as well as the juvenile justice system. In addition to serving at-risk youth, the center generates revenue by running workshops tailored to local organizations and corporations.

The students get a chance to “really step up and be a leader in a positive way,” Johnson said. “We identify the strengths of a group and help identify barriers that would get in the way of their success, so they can leverage what their strengths are.”

For more information, call 949-2011 or visit www.challengelearning.org.

Career Closet

Career Closet, with locations in San Jose and Foster City, has been building connections with the public this year and expanding the ways in which Silicon Valley women of all stripes can engage with the organization.

Volunteer dressers match more than 1,500 women a year with the hundreds of thousands of pieces of clothing donated from local closets. The clients get a complete interview outfit, including blouse, suit, shoes, nylons and purse.

“It’s just a fun, supportive environment.” Cecil said. “Our next step is helping the working woman.”

The program has expanded to include shopping for women in need of high-quality secondhand business clothing. Meriwest Credit Union is scheduled to run a workshop for Career Closet clients, teaching how to balance a checkbook, stick to a budget and understand credit.

The 16-year-old non-profit matches low-income women who are entering the work force with confidence-building business clothing.

One of its major sources of income has become the monthly public sales of nonbusiness clothing – women of all backgrounds are invited to search for designer treasure, knowing their money benefits a worthy cause. The next sale is scheduled Jan. 25-26 at both locations.

This holiday season, Career Closet adopted a whimsical raffle idea with the help of Belgium Diamond Specialties of Los Gatos. For $25, donors receive a sterling-silver pair of cubic zirconium earrings and a chance to win a $5,000 pair of diamond earrings set in platinum. They are selling earrings through Sunday.

“They’re having so much fun with it, I think everyone in the Bay Area is getting (cubic zirconia) for Christmas,” Executive Director Jean Cecil said with a laugh.

Partner agencies such as the Welfare-to-Work program, CalWORKs, domestic violence shelters and churches refer clients to the program’s two fully stocked “closets.”

The Career Closet has an annual budget of approximately $370,000.

For more information, call (408) 451-1200 or visit www.careercloset.org.

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation, based in Mountain View, is the fiscal partner and provides tax receipts to donors who contribute to the fund. To donate, make checks payable and send to: Town Crier Holiday Fund, 138 Main St., Los Altos 94022 or visit www.latcholidayfund.org.