Social Justice Events and Updates

Early one Saturday morning in November, members of the Social Justice team along with one of our Youth  Ministry teens finished packing up the "Blessing Bags" before heading off to San Francisco on BART to bring some necessities to the homeless.

Blessing Bags are gallon-sized zip-top bags filled with useful items like packages of wipes, socks and hats, deodorant, toothbrushes/toothpaste, soap, water bottles and protein bars, mini first-aid kids, and feminine hygiene products, all donated from our parishioners. Our Middle School Youth Group set up an assembly line to assemble over 100 bags a few days before the event.

Leaving the Civic Center BART station and walking through the nearby streets, we encountered many homeless people in various conditions of health. It was a very humbling experience, and our goal was to treat everyone with respect and dignity, looking them in the eyes and talking with them. Those we encountered were so grateful for the Blessing Bags they received.

I invite you to join us in the spring when we do this again - maybe in Oakland next time! It will give you a very real understanding of what it is like to live on the streets. It will also make you even more aware of how blessed we are in the Orinda community, and how there is a definite need to share those blessings with members that are marginalized in nearby areas that surround us.

Thank you to Jessie Rosendez, Bill Caldwell, Ron Sharp, Betty Jazmin, and Walter Peyton. This was the first time that any of them (excluding Gail) had participated in this kind of activity and they were all grateful for the opportunity to help!

With gratitude,
Gail Gabriel
Social Justice Team

Dear Veronica, Jane, Maggie, Cara, Ignacia, Florencia, Janet, and our friends of Church of Santa Maria,

Thank you so very much for taking time out of your busy schedules to prepare, transport, and serve dinner to the residents at Garden Park Apartments last night.

It was a faulous Mexican fiesta feast, and you thought of everything! I heard that everyone loved the meal. We hope that you enjoyed this volunteer opportunity. The residents are so appreciative of the community support they receive to continue on their road to stabilization. Your act of kindness matters.

Have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to our continued partnership with you and Church of Santa Maria in Orinda!

Sincerely,
Gloria Bertolozzi
Volunteer and Outreach Manager
Contra Costa Interfaith Housing

Members of Santa Maria parish spent their Labor Day Sunday serving the seniors and homeless at St. Mary’s Center in Oakland. A big shout out for those who helped with food, kitchen setup, serving, and cleanup: Maggie Reeves, Mary Doherty, Anne Fuller, Dede Ramsay, George Fahd, Marita Platon, Walter Peyton, Ignacia Guzman, Susan Hamilton, Margaret Govednik, Marina Gracias, Wendy Bond, Janet Riley and Gail Gabriel. 

The attendees enjoyed the enchiladas, salsa/chips, salad and brownies.  It was a wonderful experience for the parishioners to talk to the attendees, watch dominoes being played and to hear of one man’s journey from the midwest, the east coast and now California. 

In August, members of the Social Justice Team toured the Cristo Rey De La Salle East Bay High School in Oakland, one of the organizations that Santa Maria supports with its stewardship funds. Run by the Christian Brothers Foundation, Cristo Rey offers a unique college prep Catholic education for low income students.  In 2017 the Diocese closed St. Elizabeth’s High School and leased it to the Foundation to start the Cristo Rey School. The Foundation invested $2.8 million in the facility and opened the doors in September 2018 for 67 freshmen in the founding class. 

“The lifeblood of the Cristo Rey School is the corporate work study program which helps students pay for part of their tuition,” states Matt Powell, Interim President and CEO of the school. Thirty two local corporations such as Kaiser, Sutter Health, Deloitte, Chevron, WEBCOR provide entry level white collar jobs involving finance, filing, data entry, and project management. The corporate study program allows students to attend classes four days a week and go to work on average one day a week. As Powell adds, “the secret sauce is the students develop life skills in the workplace; e.g., they learn to be on time and how to interact with adults.” Of the 37 Cristo Rey schools across the country, the students graduate from college in five years at four times the rate of their peers from low income families.

In addition to the corporate study program, what makes Cristo Rey unique is its use of the Summit Learning approach which delivers lessons in three parts within each hour of class: individual instruction, group work and level learning (practicing on the computer.)  

In its second year, Cristo Rey welcomes 86 new freshmen and 67 continuing sophomores. A key to Cristo Rey’s success is its corporate partnerships. With greater enrollment each year, the school needs more jobs for more students. In addition, they need aides in the classrooms, lunch monitors and chaperones on BART to work destinations. Theresa Gonzales, a Santa Maria parishioner, volunteers in the classroom and work study program.

How can you help? Consider being a corporate partner, teacher’s aide or chaperone and make a difference in a young Catholic’s life. For more information, please contact Janet Riley at bjriley@pacbell.net, Gail Gabriel at gail.gabriel@gmail.com and Theresa Gonzales at tmgonzo2@gmail.com.

Our Social Justice Committee and Knights of Columbus visited the Order of Malta Clinic and Pope Francis Legal Clinic with Father Mockel this summer. As financial supporters of the Malta Clinic, both the SJ Committee and Knights wanted to tour the free medical clinic in Oakland. Father Mockel serves as chaplain of the Order of Malta.

Established in 2008 next to Cathedral of Christ the Light, the Malta Clinic provides preventative health care services and treatment to uninsured and low-income patients. No paperwork or proof of citizenship is required. For many, the clinic is their only source of medical care. The clinic offers a range of services and treatment including primary care, neurology, oncology, gastroenterology, ophthalmology, and endocrinology. The clinic also funds the podiatry clinic at St. Vincent de Paul. Entering its second decade, the clinic continues to grow in services, number
of patients served and geographical reach. Thanks to the partnerships with such generous organizations as Kaiser, Sutter and Quest, the Malta Clinic uses state of the art equipment and testing.

The staff is comprised of more than 50 volunteer physicians and nurses. With patient visits up over 25% this year, the clinic welcomes additional volunteer physicians and medical staff. As volunteers, the medical staff enjoys not having to do any paperwork, coding or long shifts. If you are semi-retired or retired and interested in providing medical care, please contact the Malta Clinic at (510) 587-3000.

If you would like to support the clinic, you may want to attend the Champions Gala on October 1 at the St. Francis Yacht Club. The clinic is celebrating 11 years of aiding the underserved populations of the Bay Area. Because of its innovative, volunteer-based service model, 90 cents of every dollar donated goes directly to patient care. Tickets are available at https://www.orderofmaltaclinic.com/annual-gala.

The Order of Malta will also be sponsoring the Pope Francis Legal Clinic which is just across the Pilgrim Path from the Malta Clinic. Tom Greerty who provides pro bono legal services at the clinic gave the tour of the legal office. “Miracles are happening here,” he said. Over the past three years since it has been open, over 1000 clients have been served. The legal issues on a typical day concern civil rights police misconduct, identity theft, estate planning, car accidents and landlord tenants. Volunteer recruitment is a priority: if you are interested in working pro bono on a part time basis, please contact Tom Greerty at tgreerty@aol.com.

The Welcome Group (comprised of Janet Riley, Gail Gabriel, Marita Platon, Walter Peyton, Judy Marquis, and Theresa Gonzales) attended the orientation at the Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay on May 24 in Walnut Creek. This is the new organization that the Santa Maria parish will be working with regarding refugee resettlement. 

The volunteer director and case manager seem very organized, competent and efficient. The case manager is from Afghanistan and speaks Dari. They coordinated our orientation with an introduction to our new family, Mujeebullah, Ramina and Neha Amini, and their U.S. Tie, who is also a cousin.  They have been staying with the cousin since early May. 

They will move into a one bedroom on Monument Blvd in Concord sometime soon. Dad, age 30, was working in administration with the US Army and his English is pretty good. Mom, age 22, graduated from high school and was interested in being a nurse. She is pregnant with #2. They came in with SIV (Special Immigration Visa) status, they have social security cards and their green cards are expected shortly. 

We look forward to having many new adventures with our newest family and hope you will consider helping us on this journey. If you have any leads about work for the Dad (he is willing to do anything to start), let Gail know.

Social Justice is alive and well at Santa Maria. The Social Justice Roundtable Discussion on April 25 brought together many parishioners interested in Catholic Social Teachings and Santa Maria's social justice projects for 2019.

Steve Mullin, who has held many positions in the Diocese of Oakland and most recently worked at Catholic Charities as Chief Development Officer, led the disucssion and inspired us to move forward with projects that are consistent with Catholic Social Teachings.

Guided by everyone's input, we found that our parish comunity is most interested in helping another refugee family, supporting the Winter Nights Program in Orinda, and serving food at the St. Mary's Center in Oakland. Many other great ideas were considered and will be evaluated for future projects.

Noting that there's interested in an Adult Mission Trip, we will look into this for the future. All of the Social Justice projects will be open to all parishioners. We will keep you informed.

The next Social Justice Committee meeting is Tuesday, July 16 at 4pm in the Parish Library. If you would like to see notes from the meeting or have any questions, feel free to contact Gail Gabriel.

April 2019: Thanks to Margaret Govednik

In April at the Social Justice committee meeting, Margaret Govednik was celebrated for her 19 years of chairmanship of the committee, along with her team. Margaret was recognized for her leadership of hte group and her commitment to Social Justice while serving under five different pastors at Santa Maria.
Congratulations Margaret on your retirement as chair! We look forward to having you on the committee to continue to serve and guide the new co-chairs, Janet Riley and Gail Gabriel.