Letter: Coastsiders help feed 150 hungry local families this Thanksgiving

On behalf of the staff, board and clients of Coastside Hope (formerly the Coastside Opportunity Center) we’d like to thank the entire community for the outpouring of generosity during the Thanksgiving holiday.  Because of you, over 150 families were able to sit down to a hot turkey dinner with all the trimmings.   Julia Scott of the San Mateo Times ran an excellent article detailing the day, as well as our upcoming Adopt-A-Family program. We’ve uploaded a gallery of photos of this year’s food distribution to Coastsider.

Our success was made possible with the support of a number of local groups including the 2nd Harvest Food Bank, Rotary, Lyons Club,  Rosa Amanda Holm of Prudential Realty, and the League for Coastside Protection.  We’d also like to thank the many Coastsider readers who took the time to personally drop off turkeys at the center.  Lastly, thanks to the kids at Hatch Elementary School, we were able to distribute over four racks of warm coats to both children and adults, just in the nick of time from the looks outside my window this evening.  
I was particularly impressed with one donor, who came to the center on our last day of distribution to see how the drive was going.  When he heard we were running low, he reached into his wallet and paid for enough turkeys to last the day.   One of the reasons I love working and living on the coast is the true coming together of the community around important issues.  Thank you all for exhibiting the true spirit of giving this holiday season.

Cheri Parr
Montara