November 2014 Newsletter - Harbor House Ministries

Harbor House Ministries Newsletter
Harbor House provides opportunities for people with limited resources to
become self-sufficient through educational, spiritual, and economic
programs so that, together, everyone becomes all that God intends us to be.
November 2014
Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Psalm 136:26
Board of Directors
Vivian Cheung President
Renee Chagnon Secretary
Craig Lewis Treasurer
Jonathan Hobbs
Lee Lueddemann
Mary Ann Carter
Sally VanEtten
Travis Marsh
Zarek Woodfork
Ginnie Daniel
Staff
Kathy Dwyer
Executive Director
Hector Cruz
Lisset Santos
Katie Traylor
Tam Thi Ho
Lupe del Toro
Maria del Toro
Bev Schmidt
Youth Department Staff
Bronwyn Harris
Director of Education
Lisset Santos
Asst Youth Coordinator
Christina Saechao
Alexis Pruitt
Paola Santos
Betel
Danielle Brown
Nakota Moorehead
Manny Martinez
Selina
Sabrina
Nice
Lana
Lily
Every year we increase our outreach in to the Oakland community by providing a number
of special holiday programs. In 2013 we served about 450 families through our Adopt A
Family Program, Thanksgiving and Christmas food baskets and our Christmas Store. I knew
that we would be expecting more people to sign up this year as
we are still seeing increasing need, but no one expected the
overwhelming number of people that were at Harbor House last
Saturday.
Unfortunately the crowd became so large that we required the
Oakland Police to come to our aide. I would like to thank Officers Jon Low, Christy Amaral, Erwin Samaniego, Nolan
Chan, Michael Camacho and Peny Likiu who calmly and in
Office Chan assisting with the holiday
multiple languages helped us to process the people who came to
program sign up
sign up for a holiday program. And throughout the chaos and
the confusion, I knew that what we did that morning we were sharing God’s love, just not the
way we expected. For despite the pushing and shouting, mothers who were signing up for
the Adopt a Family program continued to tell us “thank you and I come every year to your
program as these will be the only gifts my children will receive.”
Our goal is to see that every person who came to Harbor House that day receives extra holiday food or a Christmas toy and we need your help for that to happen. I asking you to please
try to dig a little deeper in order to help make the holidays a little brighter for those less fortunate. You can do this in a number of ways. Contact Lisset Santos at
lissets@hhministries.org or 510-534-0165 x 206 to sign up to Adopt A Family or donate toys to
the Christmas Store. You can also send an additional monetary donation and designate it to
go towards our Christmas programs.
Serving with Joy!
Maymi Saetern
Lisset’s article
Contact Info:
1811 11th Avenue
Oakland, CA 94606
510-534-0165
510-536-7368 (fax)
www.hhministries.org
“A new commandment I give to you:
Love one another. As I have loved you,
so you must love one another. By this all people will know that you are my
disciples, if you love one another.” John 13.34-35 NIV
MVPC Thanksgiving
There was lots of turkey and also lots of love at Harbor House on November 6! Every year we have an annual tradition of
the youth program being treated by the Moraga Valley Middle School group to an American Thanksgiving feast. For
some this is their first experience, and for many it is a time for the Harbor House kids to see their friends from MVPC
again. As you can see, the kids dined and served together and their families were treated to take home boxes of their own
Thanksgiving dinners.
At Harbor House we are thankful
for:
1. Staff who are nice
2. Lots of good food.
3. Staff helps us with our homework.
4. We get to learn about God
5. I feel safe because you don't just let us
leave but you make sure we are picked up at