Editor’s Notebook: Dedicated to charity

I recently spoke with Annette Marcum, the director and founder of Valley Churches United Missions, on the phone about the extreme need in our area this year.
Annette, who has operated VCUM in Ben Lomond since 1982, is running herself into the ground trying to find ways to feed the 799 households that have requested food from the aid organization this Thanksgiving. That’s a staggering number, perhaps fueled by the 10.7 percent unemployment rate reported in Santa Cruz County in October.
Unemployed people simply struggle to pay their bills and provide for their families.
But Thanksgiving is only the beginning of the holiday season for VCUM. Their Christmas Project supplies food for many families and often toys or necessities to children who probably won’t receive any other gift for Christmas.
The warning signs are in place this year that VCUM might not collect enough to serve everyone who signs up for food this year.
Last Friday, the organization supplied food to seniors for a Thanksgiving meal. Then, on Sunday, with lines stretching along the sidewalks in front of the Ben Lomond pantry, VCUM served everyone else. By the end of the day, as Operations Director Linda Lovelace reported, 89 households were still in line and there was nothing left at the pantry.
Valley Churches simply does not leave people without help — and, judging by the effort the staff and volunteers are putting in, it won’t this year — but it needs help.
If you have an extra couple of cans of food, drop them into a bin at a local bank or grocery store.
I am a bachelor and don’t have extra canned food in my pantry, so I bought a Safeway gift card and dropped it off at VCUM. It’s a little less money that I have, but for me to think that someone might have a turkey or ham on Christmas with some cranberries and stuffing because of what I was able to give, it makes it worth it.
I was going to donate a turkey, but Annette told me that the group’s decades-old industrial freezer broke beyond repair, and the organization cannot afford to purchase a new one — making frozen turkeys impossible to store.
I write this column because I am tremendously impressed by the work VCUM does while incurring about 5 percent in overhead costs. The organization is not strangled in government bureaucracy — the cans and cash the community donates goes directly to people in SLV and Scotts Valley — and the people there truly care that each person who shows up at the door is helped.
VCUM also doesn’t rely on government money to help people. I respect that. The taxpayers are not being taxed to help the outfit. Taxpayers help them help others because we want to.
I especially applaud all the businesses that host VCUM events, fundraisers, post barrels and stockings in their stores. Scotts Valley and San Lorenzo Valley businesses do as much as any community I have ever seen to help their neighbors, with Valley Churches being a catalyst.
• Peter Burke is the editor of the Press-Banner. Contact him at pe***@pr*********.com or 438-2500.
Help Valley Churches United Missions by contacting 336-8258 or www.vcum.org