GILROY
– It doesn’t cost a dime for neighbors to say hello to each
other, but organizing a neighborhood generally takes money – not to
mention time, courage and perseverance.
GILROY – It doesn’t cost a dime for neighbors to say hello to each other, but organizing a neighborhood generally takes money – not to mention time, courage and perseverance.
Area non-profit foundations recognize that, as proven by the grants they have given Gilroy neighborhood associations in the past year or so.
This week, three Gilroy neighborhoods split $11,400 in grants through Resources for Families and Communities, a non-profit foundation based in San Jose. RFC distributed $198,000 in federal grant funding to 40 non-profit groups throughout the county after getting 112 requests for more than $1 million.
Here are some of the plans Gilroy neighborhoods have for the money: a health fair, holiday block parties, youth field trips, school supplies for kids, cleanup days and crime watches.
The Gilroy Eigleberry Neighborhood Association got the most from RFC, $4,500, which it plans to use to hold a health fair.
“People who don’t have the opportunity to see doctors or health personnel, this will give the opportunity to bring it to them,” said Art Barron, the association’s president. “They can check for blood pressure … and stuff like that. We’re hoping to have some dentists who can give out dental products.
“Mostly, it’s awareness.”
Daniel Chavez, with the community networking group United Neighborhoods of Santa Clara County, has helped organize several health fairs. One with a $4,500 budget could accommodate several hundred people, he said. Barron said he would like to get sponsors to help fund a bigger event.
Gilroy has 12 to 15 neighborhood associations, Chavez said. Some are more active than others. Eigleberry Street neighbors formed theirs a little more than a year ago and quickly became one of the city’s most active.
“We try to be,” said Barron, who also is Eigleberry Street’s mailman.
The Eigleberry association got a grant last year but how is taking its future in its own hands. On April 1, it welcomed United Farm Workers icon Dolores Huerta to speak at its tamale fund-raiser, which netted $779. About $450 of this will be used to rent dumpsters for a cleanup day May 22.
In the fall, the association held a voter drive and a “Pizza and Politics” forum in which two mayoral candidates and two City Council candidates discussed issues with the neighbors. Before Christmas, they organized an “adopt-a-family” program.
The East Eighth Street Neighborhood Association received $4,000 from RFC, and neighbors are planning big neighborhood parties for the Fourth of July and Mexican Independence Day, Chavez said.
They also plan to spend some of the grant money on school supplies for about 50 children, something they did with grant money last year.
“There’s a real high need for it,” Chavez said. “The parents were very happy for it.”
Chavez said some East Eighth Street neighbors also are trying to pull together a festival for kids, with fun stuff to do as well as representatives from public and non-profit children’s resource groups.
South County Housing also got a $2,900 RFC grant for the young people who live in its Aspen Grove Apartments complex. These trips will include a visit to the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose.
In March 2003, 10 Gilroy neighborhood associations – including Eigleberry and East Eighth Street – received a combined $25,364 in grants from the Community Foundation Silicon Valley, one of the area’s best-known philanthropic trusts. The awards ranged from $1,810 and $3,215 each.
This March, the CFSV split $3,770 between three new neighborhood associations in Gilroy’s northwest quadrant.
The Ventana Neighborhood Association, in the Ventana planned development at the end of Longmeadow Drive, received $2,000, the largest of these grants. Executive Director Mary Hohenbrink said her group plans to use the lion’s share of the money to dedicate three oak trees in the as-yet-unbuilt Los Arroyos Park to the memory of three deceased Gilroyans who contributed to the spirit of the community.
The Ventana association also plans to use the grant money for a neighborhood newsletter and crime watch training.
The association for Summerhill, next to Ventana, received $950 and is putting it to use right away. Saturday is a cleanup and landscaping day there, and a crime watch session with police is set for Tuesday.
The nearby Swaner Drive Neighborhood Association got $820 and will hold a block party in the near future with hamburgers and hot dogs.
“We’re hoping that this will bring the neighborhood together,” association President Doug Funk said.
Back on East Eighth Street, the neighborhood revitalization bug may be spreading to young people.
Chavez said a youth group called Little Rascals interviewed last Saturday for a grant of as much as $1,000 that they plan to use for a community Fourth of July celebration. They should find out any day whether they got it, he added.
