Community

Shop local, local, local. That’s the message Gilroy retailers from the Outlets to downtown want shoppers to know before they head out for this year’s Black Friday and Shop Local Saturday sales.“Shopping local should be on people’s minds when they go out on Black Friday,” Gilroy Chamber of Commerce CEO Mark Turner. “The money that people invest in our town really recycles itself in our community, going back into other businesses, restaurants or organizations.”Before the dishes have been washed and put away on Thursday, thousands of shoppers will already be at the Gilroy Premium Outlets for the annual Black Friday sales.Opening at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving, most of the 145 retailers including 7 For All Mankind, Banana Republic, Columbia Sportswear, Kate Spade New York, Nike will remain open until 10 p.m. Friday, reopening on Saturday at 8 a.m.Jane Howard, executive director of The Gilroy Welcome Center, which is located at the Outlets, said opening on Thursday creates a family atmosphere. This will be her sixth Black Friday experience at the Outlets. The Welcome Center has coupon books for the Outlets and, Gilroy logo merchandise, including a heavily discounted Gilroy logo jacket.“It has become a social event for families, I see those multigenerational families out shopping with the mom, child and grandmother and they are just in the zone and so excited,” she said. “They have exactly in mind where they want to go, they’ve usually done some homework on their own, going on the Outlet website.”For those who would rather skip the large crowds, shops in downtown Gilroy offer unique finds just in time for the holidays. From antiques, bikes and crossbows to handmade jewelry, furniture imports and homemade quilts, downtown shops cannot be beat.“We have over 20 local artists in here,” said Kim Rossi, owner of Leedo Art & Framing at 7436 Monterey Street.Walking through the store’s various rooms adorned with original works of art, photography and sculpture, Rossi listed the many different items, at various price points, available, “We got note cards, art cards, handmade jewelry, sports memorabilia, something that is affordable for everybody.”Over at specialty retailer Garlic City Mercantile, Dave Peoples sells “gourmet garlic goodies, gadgets and gifts.” While he carries a range of garlic-infused items by locals like Christopher Ranch, Gilroy Hot Stuff, Pepper Plants, and others, it’s not just “garlicky things” you will find on the shelves.There are ceramics by local artists, kitchen gadgets, greeting cards, “as seen on TV” gizmos and european imports. At the back of the store is the Embroidery Studio where Carol and Al Gutierrez can stitch a garlic design or any other custom design on an item of your choice, from kitchen aprons to reusable cloth shopping totes. “We are a fun place and know the specialty items people are looking for,” said Peoples.Over at the Arts Center, the Artisan's Corner features artwork by local artists including handblown glass, watercolor paintings, handmade tree ornaments and more. The center will be open on Black Friday and throughout the weekend.“These are very unique items—perfect for the person that has everything,” said Kevin Heath at the Art Center. “And it’s a way to support downtown, restaurants. Everything is walkable and friendly downtown.”On Friday, Amoretto Boutique will be offering 20 to 50 percent off the entire store of stylish home furnishings and select fashions.The following day, on Shop Local Saturday, Amoretto will offer customers a free tote bag with every purchase and there will be hot chocolate from Fifth Street Coffee.“It’s just so much fun to see the energy and enthusiasm for this experience which has become quite a family tradition,” said Howard, and “from a revenue perspective, what the sales bring into the city’s general fund is pretty significant. We certainly want to celebrate we got that here.”   

As people around the country sit down to their Thanksgiving meal with family and friends at crowded dining room tables, hundreds in Gilroy are eating theirs at local soup kitchens.At St. Joseph’s Family Center, the Salvation Army and Gilroy Compassion Center, individuals and families who are either homeless or cannot afford to make their own Thanksgiving feast at home are being treated to a nourishing meal and companionship for the holiday.“Food is more than just a necessity to life, it’s also relationship building,” said Vicky Martin at St. Joseph’s Family Center, where up to 300 people were expected at their annual free meal. “We want to help heal and bring back good memories.”For some, giving up their own Thanksgiving to serve others is as traditional as roast turkey and pumpkin pie. At St.Joseph’s more than 50 volunteers working in three shifts are helping prepare, serve and cleanup.“We get volunteers that range in age from 13 to 70-plus years,” said Catherine Miramontes, who coordinates the Thanksgiving meal, called the Lord’s Table, with her husband, Guadalupe. “I have a list of repeat volunteers I contact each year to schedule for the meal preparation to the cleanup.”Volunteers start preparing the meal early in the morning—turkey, stuffing, cranberry, yams, a selection of traditional desserts—and after all the food is served, they stay to sit and talk.“We feel that everyone should try to extend those warm feelings and full tummies they enjoy to those who aren’t as fortunate,” said Miramontes, who has been volunteering at St. Joseph’s since 2010. “With our help we hope the folks we serve will one day be able to provide these memorable moments in their own domiciles with some reminders of how to do it because they remember their experiences at The Lord’s Table.”At the Salvation Army on Fifth Street, which serves free turkey meals with all the fixings on Wednesday, church secretary Lorena Alcantar, said it is important for the Gilroy community to be aware of all they do.In addition to the Thanksgiving meal that serves about 100 each year, the Salvation Army distributes clothing vouchers, operates a food pantry and fresh produce program and provides showers for the homeless an hour a day, three times a week.Alcantar said over the 10 years she’s been at the church, she’s gotten to know a lot of people, learn their stories, and shared in their heartbreak.“You get to know their problems and what they are going through.” Alcantar experienced homelessness herself when she was a teenager and had problems at home. One day she was invited to the church, attended a service and ended up staying. She said it was a miracle she survived.Today her children volunteer at the church and each Christmas donate some of their own toys to local children in need.“They like to help out,” said Alcantar, who has six kids ages 5 to 22. “They get to see that others don’t have what they have. It’s good for them to see that so they can appreciate and not take what they have for granted.”In Santa Clara County, with its high wages—if you can get them—and high cost of living, it’s not just the homeless who are being served at local soup kitchens this holiday season.Miramontes said many who rely on St. Joseph’s for food are employed and have homes.“They must choose between food and buying their basic necessities and/or paying rent.”Echoing that sentiment is Martin, who runs St. Joseph’s food pantry program, one of the three largest in the county based on food volume and the number of people served.“When the economy does better it actually creates a larger divide between high and low incomes,” she said.Martin regularly sees seniors and those on fixed incomes, students, low-wage agricultural and retail workers, as well as working families, having to decide between paying rent and getting nutritious food.She estimates they serve 100 families a day when they give out grocery baskets and at least 550 families during their Monday morning fresh produce distribution, part of an initiative to get more fruits and vegetables into impoverished communities.Martin tells of a lady who lost 12 pounds by eating the fresh produce St. Joseph’s distributes. She said there are teachers at Gavilan College who have brought food to school for hungry students.Because of this need among local youth, St. Joseph’s began in 2014 to distribute food at eight schools in Gilroy. It’s more convenient for working families who don’t have time to get to a food pantry and helps alleviate some of the behavioral issues researchers have attributed to poor nutrition resulting from food insecurity.“Hunger doesn’t take a break,” said David Cox, executive director at St. Joseph’s. “The enthusiasm we see from our community during the holidays is wonderful; we are blessed, but we would love it to be contagious and result in a year-round awareness.”  

Rosalinda Gerardo loaded up her SUV in her San Martin driveway on Oct. 25 and went inside her house to get her twin 9-year-old girls and her 5-year-old daughter to bring them to school.When she came back outside, the black Chevy Suburban was gone.“I just stood there looking and went, ‘Oh my gosh, what is going on?’” she said. “I thought maybe my husband took it to get gas, but when I called him, he didn’t have it. He walked to work. If it wasn’t happening to me, I wouldn’t have believed it.”Her vehicle was stolen, but it gets worse. The car was specially fitted for her daughter, Jocelyn, who has a rare, painful and debilitating condition in which her flesh calcifies to bone and she can’t function without a wheelchair, glasses, hearing aids and a computer that lets her communicate.It was all in the Suburban.“It was horrible,” she said. I’m just thankful my kids weren’t in the car.”Gerardo reported it to police and took to social media hoping someone could help. Four days later, Gilroy Police came through.An officer spotted the car on Leavesley Road and took off after it. It turned onto Luchessa Avenue where two people jumped out. The driver fled onto Highway 101 and drove off the road, through a fence on ranchland. Officers followed and the Suburban rammed a police car, injuring the officer when the airbag deployed.Police finally surrounded and arrested the suspect, a woman named Valeria Olmos, 22. They also grabbed the two who had jumped out, Izaak Diaz, 23, and an underage girl.They were charged with stealing the car, assault, resisting arrest and violation of probation.What followed was some good news and some bad. The car was totaled, but insurance would cover it.Corporal Lamont Toney found the purple and black wheelchair being towed behind a bicycle by a homeless man. The man told him he got the chair in a dumpster at a homeless camp by Alexander and Eighth streets. But, said Gerardo, it was so badly damaged it couldn’t be used. Searching Olmos’s home, police said they found the $5,000 communication device, but not Jocelyn’s glasses or her specially made $7,000 hearing aids, which were in her backpack.The wheelchair will take months to replace. They have improvised one that allows her to go to school at Blackford in San Jose, but Jocelyn is is in so much pain, she needs her wheelchair’s special padding and design to be able to function.“My daughter can’t sit up or speak,” said Gerardo, who works in San Jose as a mental health caseworker. Her husband is a concrete contractor. “She’s a really fragile child. Imagine you are stuck in a chair and you can’t get up and move around. It’s heartbreaking.”The computer Jocelyn uses with her feet to communicate was OK, but they broke the mount and arm so she can’t use it.“I can’t believe these people had no compassion. You would think they would have a little bit of humanity and see that the car had a wheelchair and toss it out without destroying it.”However, she found some humanity from the Gilroy Police Officers Association, which contributed $1,000 to help offset expenses. She thanked them Sunday, letting them meet her family at police headquarters.“This is why we do our job,” said Gilroy Sgt. Robert Locke-Padden. “To help people like this. We have to see so much and do so much. Sometimes we’re dealing with negative situations where people are getting arrested. It’s really heartwarming where we can do something and see something positive, get something back that was taken from them. It helps to fill your soul. That stuff is really important for police officers.”Gerardo said the officers really made a difference.“They went above and beyond and really worked their butts off. I think more people should give them credit.”  

A popular youth basketball program akin to Little League has been evicted from a Gilroy middle school after a dozen years and will be replaced by Mexican mariachi and folkloric programs and workshops for Spanish-speaking parents.School officials say South Valley Middle School’s programs must get priority and that the nonprofit National Junior Basketball Gilroy-Morgan Hill chapter was alerted to the change but collected fees from parents anyway.Chapter co-founder Shirley Lampkin disputed that they were alerted and said the group’s years of good relations with SVMS went sour only when a new principal refused to continue to rent to them so she could use the gym for the programs she wants for the Latino community.Lampkin said the principal, Patricia Mondragon, “is trying to make a name for herself by saying [she is] going to create all these programs for [her] community, for [her] people.”SVMS is 87 percent Latino and located on Gilroy’s predominantly Latino east side.Lampkin said an equal percentage of the chapter’s nearly 350 players is Latino and comes from “the whole community,” not just the east side. Her husband, Joe, also a chapter co-founder, serves on its volunteer board.While NJB continues to rent gym time at other schools, churches and community centers, the loss of its largest venue at SVMS, with four basketball courts, will mean a hike in fees to parents who already pay about $300 per season.The league has 25,000 players in six states with programs for first-graders through high school and helps families financially.Lampkin said most of its players are from Gilroy and that costs to parents will go up because the school gyms rent for $17 per hour plus custodial fees, while city facilities cost twice that and more.Facility rental now costs the league $1,000 a week, she said, to accommodate all practices and games.Lampkin and KC Adams, NJB Gilroy-Morgan Hill chapter co-founder and president, said they were told another reason for being ousted was friction between the custodial staff and NJB parents.Gilroy Unified School District assistant superintendent Alvaro Meza confirmed there had been such an issue but declined to go into details.Adams said it was about kids milling around waiting to be picked up by parents after hour-long practices, and a parent knocking on a door to find a custodian.Similar issues at Brownell Middle School led to the district forbidding kids from using outdoor courts while waiting for parents, and the district installed video cameras to monitor the players.The league instructed kids and parents not to use outdoor courts and the situation has turned out well, Adams said.He credited Brownell leadership with being more open to working with the league to resolve issues.As for Mondragon, Adams questioned her agenda after she initially rented to the group as its 13th season began, then refused to allow more use. He said the gym has gone unused for weeks and suspects she has not started new programs, at least not yet.Meza said GUSD officials met with the NJB reps, but SVMS programs get first priority.“They have been growing, so they require more basketball courts this year,” he said of the league.“They made one [rental] request that was granted and that was it. They had already collected fees for the entire season without securing the facilities; we are trying to help them [find alternative sites],” he added.Lampkin said the league was never informed in writing of a change to an arrangement they enjoyed for a dozen years and that has benefited so many Gilroy kids who for one reason or another are not allowed to play for school teams.Mondragon said, “We haven’t kicked anybody out.”The NJB, she said, “requested to rent the facilities but unfortunately the facilities are not available. There are different reasons but one of the major reasons is we have our own activities that take precedence.”She said she has added “new initiatives” designed to increase community involvement at the school and they include mariachi teams, a folkloric club and workshops for Spanish-speaking parents.While she said, “I make the decision to bring in more clubs and more parent involvement,” she also said the decision was made “at the district level.”Cheryl Galloway, who schedules the use of all district facilities, said NJB has grown tremendously in recent years and that the district can no longer meet all its demands for practice and game courts. 

St. Joseph’s Family Center’s Vicky Martin is hunting for turkeys. The organization feeds 1,000 people for Thanksgiving, but right now has only 90 turkeys. Martin says that when people don’t hear that the organization is behind and in dire straits, they assume the coffers are full. They aren’t. They need another 900 donations by Tuesday. You can drop turkeys off at St. Joseph’s at 7950 Church St #A.  

 

More than 50 students, parents and members of the community marched nearly two miles through Gilroy to City Hall Thursday at noon to celebrate unity and diversity, things they said were absent in the campaign rhetoric of President-elect Donald J. Trump.The march, organized by the Student Democratic Club at Gavilan College and including local middle and high school students, started at the old CVS store on First Street and continued along Hanna to City Hall, where the peaceful gathering concluded with speakers and a sharing circle on the complex lawn. As they marched they chanted “Unity through diversity,” “The people united will never be divided” “Hey Ho Racism has got to go.” Noshava Afzao, a Gilroy educational consultant who trains teachers, and wore a hijab said she was there with a flag to accent that liberty and justice “was for everyone.” She worried about how the election would affect that. “There’s a lot of disappointment,” she said.  “The election is a wake up call. I thought we lived in a country that had made progress and this just shows how much progress we need to make.”As word spread that students at Gavilan College were planning a citywide walkout, school administrators scrambled to inform high school parents.“Gilroy is a lovely little bubble of people who are not always proactive. We want to acknowledge voices and create a coalition,” said Sarah Najar, Vice President of the Gavilan Democratic Club.An email to Christopher High School parents from Principal Paul Winslow said: “FYI High School Parents: Someone is encouraging students to cut school” and “while we definitely support free speech, the right to assemble peacefully, and the right to express opinion” students who missed school to participate would be penalized and not be able to make up work.Lisa Ruiz, a parent of Gilroy students with special needs, said she received a call from the GUSD the night before alerting her that any absence would be considered unexcused, but felt she needed to come anyways.“I got to be here in solidarity with the minorities in the community and to see what we can do to help to unify everyone not be divided and hopefully we can get together in love.”As people gathered in the parking lot, members of the Gilroy Police Department kept an eye on proceedings. Sgt. Wes Stanford had a team of motorcycle officers  charged with making sure the demonstrators were safe walking the mile and a half between First Street and City Hall. The department was notified of the march, but organizers didn’t know they would need a permit. “We want to make sure that it’s peaceful, that they are allowed to voice their opinion and whatever views they have and they get to City Hall in a safe fashion.” Stanford said the city has had sporadic marches over the years with the last one he remembers an Occupy Gilroy march of eight people.The well-behaved crowd began their march up First Street - along the sidewalks and stopping at all intersections, using the crosswalks - the sound of honking cars mingling with chants calling for unity.Iris Cueto, 23, a Gavilan biology major, said “The election is making me feel sad, but it’s also making me feel happy to have youth standing up for their rights. It’s nice to see them out here protesting in a peaceful way.” Holding up a coat hanger poster that read, “Never Again,” Summer Diaz, 18, said: “I believe everyone should have their rights. I believe that women should make their own choice and politicians should stay out of women’s rights. “ When the marchers got to City Hall they were offered bottled water by the student organizers who then thanked the crowd for obeying all the traffic laws and the police for “keeping us safe.” Addressing the group, Dr. Enrique Luna, who teaches history at Gavilan, said “we don’t want to be here, but there is a need.” Thanking the march organizers for putting on the event, he said at times he was both laughing and shedding a few tears during the march to city hall. It’s hard to build a community, it’s easy to destroy a community. And we are here to do the hard work.”    

A San Jose man who was driving on a private road in Aromas and reportedly talking on a cell phone, was struck and killed Thursday afternoon by a train at an unmarked crossing, according to the California Highway Patrol.

More than a hundred Gilroyans gathered outside the Veterans Memorial Building on Sixth Street Friday to honor the men and women who have served in our nation’s armed forces during a heartfelt Veterans Day ceremony. There was the Presentation of the Colors, by the Color Guard of Post 6309 and American Legion Post 217, a beautiful rendition of the National Anthem by Ted Sanchez and patriotic music performed by the Christopher High and Gilroy High School marching bands, who played together for the first time in five years. Mayor elect Roland Velasco, who served four years in the US Army, was the guest speaker. John Ceballos, past District 12 Commander and past VFW Post 6309 Commander, served as Master of Ceremonies for the hour-long service, which saw Robert “Bobby” Armendariz, Commander of Gilroy American Legion Post 217 named Veteran of the Year, one of eight veterans recognized by Assemblymember for District 30, Luis Alejo. “Bobby is deeply committed to the veteran community, is involved in various organizations, most notably Gilroy American Legion Post 217, where he serves as commander,” said Daniel Dodge from Alejo’s office. “Under his guidance, the post has distinguished itself as a community leader, which regularly gives scholarships and advocates for veterans affairs.” Armendariz began his military and advanced infantry training at Fort Lewis, Wa., gaining knowledge in the armored division as a tank driver and infantry light weapons specialist. He was then deployed to Germany as part of a Ranger Unit with the 16th Infantry, Alpha Company, First Battalion where he supported his unit as a tank driver.After his honorable discharge, Armendariz returned to his native Gilroy and married his wife Lucy. He worked for 30 years at Crown-Zellerbach, a paper products corporation, until his retirement. “The people of California solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly on the seas, in the air, on foreign shores to preserve our heritage of freedom,” recited Dodge before welcoming Armendariz to the podium. “It is appropriate to applaud Bobby Amendariz for the courageous manner through which he’s served and sacrificed to safeguard our democratic principles for this generation and generations to come.” Ushered through the crowd in a round of applause, at the podium, Armendariz thanked the gathered group of servicemen and their families, the American Legion and Gilroy community. “Thank you for this great honor,” said Armendariz, during a brief speech that called for veteran unity. “ We [The American Legion] does as much as we can for the community and for all veterans - no matter who they are. Whether they served in the US or overseas, or were combat veterans.We have to remember that we are all veterans, no matter what, where or who we served with. We need to appreciate ourselves, and devote our time to the community, especially to the young people of this city of Gilroy, so they grow up to be strong and hopefully become veterans that will carry on this work. Thank you very much.” 

Two women who were part of a peaceful prayer vigil say they were harassed, intimidated and lied to, and a California Highway Patrol officer trampled their First Amendment rights, because they inadvertently stood on state property to pray the rosary in the shade.