PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release: November 19, 2018 San Jose, CA – Alum Rock Counseling Center (ARCC) based in East San Jose has been providing mental and behavioral health services and counseling to high need youth and families for nearly 45 years. Some might argue that a toy giveaway event is not particularly mission-based. CEO, Steve Eckert, disagrees.
“Our organization provides an array of behavioral health and educational support services – everything from child abuse prevention to middle school mentoring to 24/7 mobile crisis intervention. We host this event because sometimes a key factor in mental health is just feeling included. Just feeling like you weren’t the only kid in school who didn’t get a gift for the holidays.”
The event started as home grown, by a group of dedicated staff who simply wanted to do something nice for their clients at Christmas time, because many of them otherwise had very little to celebrate. But the event has grown tremendously since that time.
Each year, for the past several years, the agency has received gifts from Toys for Tots and Family Giving Tree as well as many donated gifts from staff, Board Members and their family and friends. For the second year, members of the Alum Rock Santa Clara Street Business Association are partnering with ARCC to host the event. Connie Alvarez, owner of Friendship Hall in East San Jose, is once again donating the venue for the day, and Carlos Diaz, owner of entertainment company Knight Sounds, is providing PA and music services, lighting and holiday decorations. Claudia Castaneda of Catering for all Occasions is donating an array of yummy foods. Employees at Cushman Wakefield in Santana Row are hosting an internal toy drive and sending volunteers on the day of the event. Plus, ten South Bay 24 Hour Fitness locations and five local Starbucks stores are hosting bins to gather toys.
They say it takes a village to raise a child, and the village of San Jose is coming out in full force to do more than its part to support this special event.
ARCC Chief Development & Communications Officer, Stacy Dryer, explains, “We still are not at the point where we can provide gifts to all of our clients. ARCC serves nearly 5,000 youth and families per year. But we can provide gifts and a festive holiday celebration to nearly 800 children and youth. And with the amazing support we’ve seen from our local community, that number likely will continue to grow.”
Jon Yap has served on the Board of ARCC for over 10 years. He and his wife, Linda, come to wrap gifts at the Toy Giveaway Event every year. Sometimes they bring egg rolls to share. They always bring smiles. According to Jon, “Seeing the kids’ faces light up and the smile from ear to ear is priceless. And even more when they describe how happy they are to select a gift for their brother or sister – truly makes the magic of Christmas real.”
Why does the event matter? Just ask Clinical Director, Vicky Tamashiro. “Every day we serve kids who continually stare into the face of poverty, kids who witness gang violence in their neighborhoods, kids who’ve had family members incarcerated or deported, kids who have to take care of themselves most days because parents are working multiple jobs just to keep a roof over their heads and make ends meet. This event is not only a nice thing to do, it’s the right thing to do. Especially with everything going on in the world today, we have to take care of one another.”
Gifts for the event can be donated up until Dec 17 at ARCC’s clinic located at 1245 East Santa Clara Street, San Jose or its administrative offices located at 777 N. First Street, Suite 444, San Jose or any of the other participating locations.
Monetary donations to support the work of ARCC can be mailed to the administrative offices at 777 N. First Street, Suite 444, San Jose, CA 95112 or made online at: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/102756.
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