Davis Community Meals + Housing: COVID-19 Services and How You Can Help

Repower has had the pleasure of supporting (i.e., donating a minimum of $500 to) more than 70 local nonprofit organizations  over the past few years. All nonprofits are worthy, but there is one – today – that is providing on-the-ground assistance to our most vulnerable COVID-19 community members.

Please join us in supporting Davis Community Meals & Housing during this compelling time of need. Here’s a summary of their contemporary services and how our community can lend a hand:

Providing food, housing and services to many of the most vulnerable in our community has been our mission since 1991. It continues to be our mission today.

We are continuing our meals program at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5:45 pm and our lunch on Saturday at 11:30 am. In compliance with state and local guidelines, we have suspended our sit down eating service and are now preparing and handing out bagged sandwiches and other food items for take away.

All of our housing programs are continuing. Our weekday resource center is still operating from 8 am to 12 noon Monday to Friday. Staff availability during the afternoon is limited at this time.

We have had no reported cases of Covid-19 by any of our volunteers, guests and staff. We are being extremely vigilant of following all CDC guidelines and guidance from multiple sources on best practices to combat the spread of this disease to all. We request that all volunteers who are deemed to be in a vulnerable class of individuals or for any other reason to stop volunteering at this time. Your health and safety is very important to us!!

We want to thank all for your continuing support and donations. With your help we can continue to provide to the individuals and families in our community.

DONATIONS

As many of you have witnessed, shortages of certain products and food items have created empty shelves and shortages of many of life’s basic necessities. Below is a list of our highest needs:

• Toilet Paper

• Paper towels

• Hand Sanitizer

• Sanitizing Wipes (Clorox Wipes)

• Fresh fruit (bananas, oranges, apples)

• Chips

• Sandwich meat and cheese (packaged)

• Cookies

• Non-perishable food items

For your safety, we will be accepting these donations on Tuesdays and Thursdays between the hours of 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm at St. Martins Church, 640 Hawthorn Lane, Davis, CA in the back of the church hall. For our guests and our safety, we will not be accepting home prepared sandwiches, food or any opened food items. For any other donations, please contact Bill at billpride@dcmah.org or Harmony at harmony@dcmah.org. Monetary donations can be mailed to DCMH at PO Box 72463, Davis, CA 95617 or on-line at www.daviscommunitymeals.org. Please contact Bill for any other questions.

Thank you. Be well, take care … we will persevere.

Another trip around the sun

On New Year’s Eve, we encapsulated the past year in a 15-thread Twitter communique. Here’s a summary:

‘tis the end of the year and thus time to recollect our 2019 trip around the sun. We are extremely grateful to our collective community for its support in a record-setting Repower year. A few highlights to share …

• In 2019 we helped 125+ Yolo County homeowners go solar. In aggregate, our 2019 solar clients will save $8.1 million in utility costs and retire 19,101 metric tons of CO2 (over the next 25 years), the equivalent of taking 4,055 cars off the road or planning 315,841 trees. Very cool.

• Solar is now. Primary motivations to go solar are uncertainty about (and mistrust in) PG&E, a desire to reduce and hedge utility costs, and strong ideals about confronting climate change (e.g., “Doing my part.”). A smart, sustainable investment.

• Rewarding projects we orchestrated this year included the Marriott Residence Inn Davis, Davis ACE Hardware, Davis Community Church, Hyatt Place Vacaville, Millennium Child Development Center Dixon, Yolo Food Bank, Lincoln40, Lutheran Church of the Incarnation Davis, and myriad advisory projects for First Northern Bank.

• Kudos to our comrades Valley Clean Energy for fighting the good fight. In particular, thank you to VCE for amending their solar net-metering program, per our recommendations, to make it viable for Yolo County solar owners. The future is bright for VCE.

• Many thanks to THE GREAT Chris Granger and our fellow board members and volunteers at the Cool Davis Foundation, the little engine that CAN make a difference in reducing our community’s carbon footprint. Cool Davis rocks.

• Great appreciation to fellow Davis Community Meals and Housing board members and Paul’s Place capital campaign colleagues for their inspiring + tireless work to help less fortunate members of our community. Paul’s Place is happening.

• To fellow volunteers and capital campaign members who propelled Yolo Food Bank’s beyond successful ($7 million) capital campaign to build and open a new distribution center … wow! You did it. And, thanks too for entrusting Repower to solarize the new facility.

• This is great fun: When homeowners go solar, we donate $500 to their favorite Yolo County nonprofit organization. We call this YoloShines. On behalf of Repower homeowners, we supported 37 organizations this year; over the past week alone, we donated $40,500 to local causes. 2019 YoloShines beneficiaries: Citizens Who Care, City of Davis Housing Trust Fund, CommuniCare Health Centers, UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, Cool Davis Foundation, Cub Scout Pack 111, Davis Chapter of Project Linus, Davis Community Meals & Housing, Davis Little League, Davis Media Access, Davis Schools Foundation, Empower Yolo, Esperanza Rising Foundation, Family Hope Network, UC Davis Guardian Scholars Program, NorCal Trykers, Interfaith Rotating Winter Shelter, iHouse Davis, Norcal GSP Rescue, Patwin School PTA, Purebreds Plus Cat Rescue, Rivendell Nursery School, Robert E Willett Elementary School, Rotts of Friends, STEAC, Suicide Prevention Yolo County, Paul’s Place, Sutter Davis Hospital Foundation, Davis Phoenix Coalition, University Covenant Church, Yolo Food Bank, Yolo CASA, Yolo SPCA, Yolo Crisis Nursery, Yolo Interfaith Immigration Network and Yolo Land Trust. What a year, with great thanks to Repower homeowners for their support of our community.

We remain humbled, thrive on the opportunity to earn trust, to enrich full and meaningful lives. Solar simpletons, yes, but beyond helping neighbors save money and reduce their carbon footprints, our commitment to strengthen our community is galvanized by the day. Happy 2020.

Yolo Shines Today

Today was a great day. We had the pleasure of donating several thousand dollars to local nonprofit organizations, in the name of RepowerYolo homeowners. (When homeowners go solar, we donate $500 to the local charity of their choice; we call this YoloShines.) 

Today our community shined:

• A $500 donation to the Willowbank Club to support its habitat improvement program, on behalf of the Reynolds+Hiss family.
• In the name of the Buckel family, $500 to First Baptist Church.
• New Hope CDC: $500 from (THE GREAT) Baker family.
• Meals on Wheels: $500 thanks to the Reno family.
• $1,500 to Yolo Food Bank, as designated by the Andrews, Sherman and Rogers families.
• With thanks to the Belgum family, $500 to Yolo Interfaith Immigration Network.
• $500 to (the amazing!) STEAC, thanks to the Bercutts.
• An increasingly important organization, Davis Community Meals: $500 at the request of the Kennedy family.
• $250 each to Friends of the Davis Public Library and Yolo Hospice thanks to the Bramburg+Curley family.
• $500 to Yolo County SPCA, on behalf of the Riel family. 

Sounds trite, but it's more fun giving away money than making (or spending) money. The essential fabric of our community is strengthened. Please join us in supporting these -- and dozens of other -- worthy organizations in our community.

The Extraordinary Ordinary: Emily Griswold

[Originally published August 12, 2015]

Emily Griswold is in love with plants. "I really got going in high school. My relatives' beautiful gardens inspired me. I find the beauty and diversity of plants fascinating. It's always challenging to figure out how to grow them. They're living beings and have their own things going on."  

Davisites have reaped the benefits of Emily's biophilia and green thumb for many years now. Her work has enhanced our lifestyle, provided respite and refreshment for people from all walks, given UC Davis students opportunities to serve and get some "horticulture therapy," built community, and convened enthusiastic gardeners and environmentalists. And this is just the tip of the Extraordinary-Ordinary-berg! 

Emily is the Director of Horticulture for our very own world-renown UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. Simply put, she oversees the well-being of all the plants and the volunteers who care for them. 

In her "free" time, she oversees Central Park's gardens along 'B' Street between 3rd and 4th Streets here in Davis as a volunteer. "The conversation began in 2006," said Emily, "when the City of Davis didn't have the resources to keep the gardens up."

Scrabble paved the way for Emily's volunteering in the gardens. Yes, Scrabble. Her husband often plays Scrabble in Central Park and she needed something to do while he was occupied with Triple Word Scores. She noticed that the garden provided a great space for getting people interested in plants and horticulture. Emily said, "I would look over at the garden and think, 'It would be kind of nice to work on that garden. It would be cool if the Yolo County Master Gardeners had a demonstration space.'" (The Yolo County Master Gardeners share science-based information from the university on growing things.)

The way she has grown her team is as natural as the garden itself. Emily has a cadre of experienced gardeners who volunteer to nurture those who are new to gardening. She said that she has "a series of volunteer leaders who have adopted the roses and other parts of the garden and help coordinate other volunteers." 

The garden is part of a larger ecosystem. For example, the tomatoes and other goodies harvested in the vegetable garden section go to Davis Community Meals and other nonprofits. The City of Davis provides workers comp for volunteers, keeps the irrigation system working, prunes the trees, picks up the green waste, and provides woodchip mulch and decomposed granite for path repair. 

Emily stays current on everything "gardening" in Davis, such as the Davis Farm-to-School Connection that coordinates all school gardens, recycling programs, and organic farm visits for the students. Emily said, "I really like getting to know people when I'm working on a focused project. This project has made me a full-on townie. I am more engaged in local politics than I ever thought I would be." Emily also serves on the Parks and Recreation Commission. 

Emily Griswold, thank you for all you do. Thank you for cultivating such beauty and community here in Davis and beyond. Yours is a special kind of photosynthesis. Thank you for being so extraordinary!