Though best known for their actions during the holiday seasons, the volunteers of Valley Churches United Missions know that the work of helping people in need in the San Lorenzo Valley is a year-round job.
In addition to holiday projects and disaster-relief preparedness, the nonprofit helps clients who’ve struck difficult economic straits as they try to make ends meet, pay their bills, put food on the table, get help with medical and dental care and provide for their families.
As a single mother of two, Boulder Creek resident Wanda Conaway-Knight, 57, knows firsthand the struggles Valley Churches often helps with.
She’s lived in the valley since 1987 and initially become involved with Valley Churches by driving USDA monthly food distribution to people who weren’t able to get to the nonprofit’s Ben Lomond headquarters themselves.
“I got involved in the community because the community helped me out when I needed it,” she said. “I just try to give back where I can.”
Conaway-Knight works as a cosmetologist and in-home support provider and serves as a leader in the Service Employees International Union, but at times she still finds it difficult to make ends meet.
After divorcing her ex-husband in the late 1990s, Conaway-Knight found that providing for her son and daughter — now 21 and 30, respectively — was often a daunting task.
“A lot of times, when I didn’t have anything, Valley Churches helped me out so much,” she said. “They make you feel good when you go in there, and you don’t feel embarrassed to ask for help.
“If it wasn’t for Valley Churches, my children would’ve been missing out on a lot of holidays,” she said. “When I wasn’t getting help for child care, they helped me out with my rent.”
When they were in school, the group also helped her children — both San Lorenzo Valley High School graduates — by providing backpacks, money for school clothes and school supplies.
Conaway-Knight described Valley Churches as a symbol of the close-knit community of the San Lorenzo Valley.
She remembered a meeting with Child Protective Services when she briefly served as a foster parent for a 16-year-old boy.
“When (Child Protective Services) asked me ‘Who’s going to help you here?’ I said, ‘The whole valley.’”
Operations director Linda Lovelace said that the organization, which relies heavily on the generosity of donors, exists to serve the people of the San Lorenzo Valley.
“A lot of people are so appreciative of what Valley Churches does, they say they never want to move,” Lovelace said.
Linda Meyer, a volunteer at Valley Churches, described how the nonprofit helped her find school supplies and clothes for her children when they came to her with a laundry list of classroom needs.
“My kids would come home with a whole list of supplies the teachers said that they needed for the school year — and I had no money for that,” she said.
Valley Churches gave her the school supplies, backpacks and a $75 gift card to Kmart.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do it otherwise,” Meyer said.
Donations needed for backpack drive
Preparations are in full swing as Valley Churches United Missions works to get about 400 backpacks ready and filled with school supplies for children of different ages.
“The community is so supportive of investing in our youth,” said Linda Lovelace, operations director.
The backpacks are provided free of charge to students in need all the way up to college.
The supplies are all donated or bought with donated funds. Donations can be dropped off at Valley Churches’ Ben Lomond headquarters.
“We need dividers, binders and binder paper of all kinds like crazy,” Lovelace said.
For information: Valley Churches United Missions, 9400 Highway 9, in Ben Lomond, 336-8258 or www.vcum.org.
