Please Consider Donating!

Walnut Creek’s Community Service Day is this Saturday, October 14th. The giving season is underway, and if you are considering donating, I ask that you please consider doing so to the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano. More and more people need help and there are some great sales on the items on the shopping list below. Your generous donations are greatly appreciated!

If you would like to take part, there are four options for giving:

Give a bag of food from your home: put a bag of food in clear view at the end of your driveway by 9:30 a.m. on Saturday.
Donate at any Walnut Creek Safeway: money and food can be donated at any location from 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. on Saturday.
Call Kristin: you can call me to pick up your donation or drop it off at my house (190 Arlene Dr., Walnut Creek), as long as it’s done by 10 a.m. on Saturday.
Give online: finally, you can donate by visiting www.walnut-creek.org/service!

Please note that the Food Bank can not take glass items, and that they prefer to receive items listed on the poster. Help us fight hunger now!

Another successful pie party!

Thanks to all of those who braved the rain and came out for my pie party last week; it was a great success! I had 42 pies, but due to the rain and traffic, some did not make it and the extras were also donated to the Trinity Center. I really enjoyed catching up with some familiar – and meeting some new – faces! I love hosting, and this is one of my favorite events of the year.

All in all, you helped me send an SUV full of donations (clothes, food, shoes, etc.) to the Trinity Center, and I was able to donate over $900 (checks and gift cards) as well! What a wonderful gift from all of you!

I believe the best part about the party itself was that it connected people in the community who hadn’t seen each other in a long time! There were lots of great conversations and drawing for door prizes. Some people just came by to drop off a donation, pick up a pie, but many “gathered” and mingled.

A special thanks to Daryl “Indy” Choy for giving out chair massages to my guests, plus two massage gift certificates! And an extra shout-out to the folks (Bob & Peggy) who sent me the picture (see below) of them dressed as “private pies.” I got a kick out of that! I hope to see you all again next year as this event continues to grow! Now I just need a bigger, more open space. Maybe a remodel…

Pie Party / Trinity Donation!

Next week, my annual pie party and donation drive will be taking place! I am looking forward to seeing some familiar faces, along with some new ones.

This effort supports the Trinity Center in Walnut Creek, which is a homeless shelter helping to assist those in need around our area. I believe the reason Walntu Creek doesn’t have a large homeless problem is because of the good work done by the Trinity Center to offer them viable solutions.

I used to do a just a coat drive for the one warm coat, but the last three years I have made it a pumpkin pie pick-up party with a donation drive supporting the Trinity Center. I supply the pie, the party and people bring donations for Trinity, and it is a wonderful pre-holiday time to connect with neighbors and clients. Any pies that don’t get picked up, also get donated. Since I distribute this flyer in Parkmead, I usually hire students or moms to pass them out and pay $25. This year a neighbor Cynthia helped and asked me to donate the money to Trinity – I will be buying a Chevron gas card.

This year, they are asking specifically for some clothing items in both men’s and women’s sizes. See the image below for details. Items can be used, but clean with no holes or stains, but certain items like underwear should be new ;-).

As for the pies, reserve one today and make sure to bring a donation for the Trinity Center. If you can’t swing by to pick it up yourself, message me and we’ll arrange something. Try to come by and get it yourself, because the party I’m hosting will be a blast!

I Love You A Latte II

Last year, I held my inaugural “I Love You A Latte” event at the Capital One Cafe in downtown Walnut Creek. This year, we had a great turnout of about 25 people and collected a ton of donations for the Paradise fire victims (see this Thursday’s blog for more information on the donation and drop-off!).

This event is about community, connecting people, and taking a moment out of our day to interact and meet old and new friends. I am very grateful to everyone who donated items, as I saw firsthand how the Paradise area is anything but paradise these days – the effects of the devastating fire continue to show.

Below are a few pictures of the event along with the Valentine goody bags and giveaway prizes. Thank you to Robert Ring at Cross Country Mortgage for co-sponsoring, and to Fidelity National Title for a few of the prize giveaways, along with my awesome team – Lilly Lares and Denise Flor!

Capital One is a great place to host this event as it has a large space that isn’t very crowded and serves Peet’s Coffee. I really appreciate each and every one of you who came out and for all the donations brought! For those who missed it, I hope to see you at one of my future events.

Pie Party for Trinity Coat Drive – THANK YOU!

Recently, I held my annual pumpkin pie party supporting the Trinity Center and it was another success! This is my third year combining the coat drive with a pie give away which brings full circle gratitude and appreciation for my clients, referrals, neighbors and friends. This year we had 34 pie orders, in addition, I had many people who just dropped off items for Trinity. As you can see, I had an SUV full of coats, gloves, hats, etc. and $300 in checks!

This was by far my most successful and giving pie party to date! You can see pictures of the pies and donations above, as well as some fun shots from the party itself below. This year Indy, aka Daryl Choy donated his time for chair massages and for our drawing and JVM donated a couple of Hydro Flasks, the winners were picked at the end of the night with a few stragglers, picking the winning prize winners!

This is my favorite charity event of the year, as it combines food, drink, friends, and mingling! I can’t thank everyone who joined, donated, ordered pie, etc. enough. It really shows that this community is in the giving spirit this holiday season, and it means a lot to me to know that Trinity can be supported and celebrated by the people around me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I can’t wait until next year!

How to send help to the fire victims

Last week, a record-setting wildfire decimated the picturesque Napa, Sonoma and Santa Rosa areas. There are 40 people dead, at least 16 wineries destroyed, thousands homeless and hundreds still missing.

It is one of the most gruesome, saddening natural disasters in California history. If you’re like me, and want to help out the victims of these fires and do whatever you can to restore those areas to their former selves, there are plenty of ways to donate.

One way is to send a box of fresh fruit and vegetables from Farm Fresh to Redwood Empire Food Bank. So far, they’ve donated more than 200 boxes to evacuation centers throughout Sonoma and Mendocino Counties.

For every box donated to Redwood Empire Food Bank, Farm Fresh to You – who we wrote about last week – will match that donation. Just click here if you’d like to help. I did and when I don’t want a box delivered to my house, I will click to donate.

There have also been numerous drives and charities springing up on social media in the wake of the destruction. One specifically mentioned on the TV briefings was Napa Valley Community Foundation. Or if your heart is with helping all the animals, Jameson Animal Rescue Ranch is an Amazon Smiles recipient.

These give assurances that your donation is going where it will be most useful. If you don’t want to get involved with those, many who have friends and family that have lost everything are taking up carloads of specific donations.

My friend’s parents and sister both lost their houses and she specifically asked for certain sized clothes and non-perishables. I rummaged through my home for clothes and supplies, plus gave a gift card to Trader Joe’s.

In the news briefing, they specifically requested to temper our donations, meaning they will still be needed two months from now, so maybe one day in the near future when you are feeling grateful for all that you have, you might think, “I would like to click on one of these links and donate $25.”

One Warm Coat drive – thank you!

My team and I recently coordinated a local coat drive to donate clothing to One Warm Coat, an organization that gives clothing to the homeless and others in need during winter.

I’m proud to say that we had so many contributions, we had to use two cars just to haul all the bags of coats to One Warm Coat! I really enjoyed meeting everyone when I stopped by to pick up the coats and for those who dropped them off on my doorstep or left them on their porch for me to grab, I am shouting out a big THANK YOU ALL so much!

Your contributions will go a long way in keeping people warm this winter who otherwise might not have been. Keep an eye out for another One Warm Coat drive next year!

fullsizerender-14 — It was dark, so the photo didn’t turn out great but this is one of the volunteers on the pile of bags in the truck – all full of coats!

Walnut Festival coming this weekend!

This Thursday through Sunday, The Walnut Festival will be put on for the 80th time. The Festival is a rite of passage for young Walnut Creek residents, and probably anyone who has lived here for a few years has experienced it at some point.

I looked up a little history on the Festival that I’d like to share:

First Festival was in 1911 and was called The Grape Festival
In 1936, the name officially changed to The Walnut Festival
In 1976, it was officially relocated to Heather Farm Park for good

Among other things, The Walnut Festival offers fun carnival rides, tons of food options and a bunch of cool entertainment. The Walnut Festival Association runs the show and will give discounted tickets ($6 instead of $7) to anyone who brings a can of food for donation to the gates.

The Walnut Festival will run from 5-10 p.m. on Thursday, 5-11 p.m. on Friday, 11-11 on Saturday, and 11-8 on Sunday. Don’t miss out!