‘Ruth Shavel, volunteer’ is a permanent nametag for Shavel. So much so that when she started collecting donated items for Puente schoolchildren, she didn’t even need to be told how to sort everything.

You might even say she’s addicted to giving.

Shavel, a Redwood City resident, has been volunteering since she was a teenager, putting trays on donuts to serve to injured World War II veterans with the Red Cross in Palo Alto.

“You had to be 16 to volunteer but I wasn’t – I was 14. I had to stay in the kitchen because I wasn’t supposed to be there,” says Shavel.

Later on, Shavel’s local school district benefited from her efforts as a volunteer both inside her children’s classrooms and as volunteer coordinator for the entire school district. Then she spent 15 years volunteering with Samaritan House of San Mateo, feeding homeless people.

So when a friend introduced Shavel to Puente last year, it was only natural that Shavel immediately decided to launch an all-out donation campaign to help collect school supplies for local students. She approached her local gym, a Curves franchise, about gathering the supplies. And a few months later, she showed up in Pescadero with an entire trunkful of paper, pencils, water bottles, calculators, crayons, folders, reusable lunch bags and backpacks.

“I took the car and we filled the whole trunk. You couldn’t have gotten a toothpick in there. It was wonderful,” declares Shavel.

She hasn’t stopped there. Shavel now has another drive going for donated adult essentials – towels, soap bars, toothbrushes, jackets and the like, which Puente always keeps in stock to deliver to clients.

Puente needs your help this holiday season! Please see our wish list for children’s Christmas stocking-stuffers as well as gift bags for farm and nursery workers. New this year, Puente is raising $7,000 via a special campaign drive on Rally.org to give South Coast parents a gift card that will allow them to shop for their children.

“I think Puente is so far ahead of the other agencies I started with,” says Shavel. “They have a lot going on with a minimum amount of overhead. They have support up and down the coast. That’s the way to make a better life for these people who are here to help us.”

To learn more about donating to (and volunteering for) Puente, contact Abby Mohaupt at amohaupt@mypuente.org  or  click here. 

Puente’s commitment to providing fresh, local produce to the people who can least afford it has always been contingent on the cooperation of local farmers and ranchers – passionate food advocates who donate produce or sell it at Puente’s Pescadero Grown! Farmer’s Markets.

And nowhere has that vision found more bedrock support than with Potrero Nuevo Farm and Blue House Farm, two small farms a short drive from Puente’s headquarters in Pescadero.

This year, Potrero Nuevo Farm (which means “new pastures”) will donate a staggering 6,000 pounds of fresh-picked farm produce to Puente (and another 6,000 pounds to Catholic Worker House of Half Moon Bay) – food that Puente uses at program events and distributes to individual Program participants.

“They’re basically growing food so that other people can eat healthfully,” says Puente Executive Director Kerry Lobel.

Bay Area philanthropists Bill Laven and Christine Pielenz founded Potrero Nuevo Farm in 2008 in the spirit of the social justice work they’d done together for many years. They wanted to feed struggling South Coast families and educate children about the value of farming. Today, the farm donates 85 percent of the food it grows.

“It’s great to feed people who can’t even afford food from Safeway sometimes,” says Laven.

Founded in 2005, Blue House Farm was at the vanguard of a group of small, organic cultivators who started tilling plots along South Coast at that time. Co-founders Ryan Casey and Ned Conwell heard about Puente’s efforts to locate affordable, nutritious food for local Mexican families – people who could often only afford processed foods, or couldn’t make the trip up to Half Moon Bay for fruit and vegetables.

Blue House Farm started distributing their weekly CSA boxes (Community-Supported Agriculture – a seasonal selection of produce) to Puente, which gave the boxes to local mothers who had completed a nutrition education course.

“I think giving people in Pescadero some broader food options is an important thing,” says Casey, who now owns Blue House Farm alone and runs it with members of his staff.

Blue House was among the first farms to participate in Pescadero Grown! when the markets were in a germination phase and Casey is one of Puente’s most stalwart supporters.

“I’ve really enjoyed working with Puente at the farmer’s market. I hope it continues,” he says.

Both Potrero Nuevo and Blue House Farm will be honored for their contributions to Puente and the South Coast communities at Puente’s annual volunteer appreciation event, to be held on October 21.

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how much your neighbors need your help until you get to know them. So it was for both Jim Brigham and Michael Scott, two longtime Puente volunteers who have spent years giving their own community members a leg up on the South Coast.

For Jim Brigham, a retired clinical social worker, the first defining moments of his work with Puente began when he moved into a home with his wife, Gen, in the Butano redwoods in 2004. It wasn’t long before he met the Rev. Wendy Taylor, founder of Puente, and Carol Young-Holt, Puente’s earliest backer and volunteer. Brigham started volunteering to host La Sala, Puente’s biweekly social event for farm workers, and then began helping with food distribution.

He saw first-hand how difficult it was for farm workers to avail themselves of even the most basic medical services, so he stepped in to drive them to doctor’s appointments in Redwood City.

“Puente is the model of bringing social services to a place where there are none. It couldn’t be done any better,” says Brigham, who now lives in Half Moon Bay. He was a founding board member with Puente in 2005, and he stepped down in 2009.

Today, Brigham is a sustaining donor and plays Santa Claus in Puente’s annual Christmas celebration. A few years ago he donated his Jeep to Puente. It has since become known as the “PuenteMobile.”

“Puente connects the two sides – Spanish and Anglo – so both become visible to the other in a positive way, and increases the chance of respect and understanding,” he says.

Michael Scott connected with Puente ten years ago when a friend told him about the plight of farm workers who slept in improvised shacks, without enough food or basic supplies. Scott had already founded Coastside Hospitality, which distributes funds, clothing and food to poor and homeless Coastsiders via local nonprofit services.

Scott delivered food to farms on the South Coast, and Christmas gifts in December. He bought supplies for student backpacks at the start of the school year.

“I think all of us have a responsibility to share their experience, their resources, and to help people in their community,” says Scott. “My community is the coast.”

Scott retired from a lucrative career as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist in 2003 and used part of his earnings to bankroll a variety of basic safety net services, like a rent subsidy program and an emergency subsidy program for less fortunate neighbors. Volunteers at Catholic Worker House in Half Moon Bay, an organization supported by Scott,  feed as many as 400 locals every week.

In Pescadero, Scott made a sizeable gift to renovate the local Catholic Church. And he still goes on a major Christmas shopping spree every year on behalf of hundreds of Puente program participants.

“I have a lot of time and a lot or resources so that’s what I do,” he says.

Puente needs volunteers! To learn how you can help (or donate), contact Puente Executive Director Kerry Lobel at klobel@mypuente.org or (650) 879-1691 x144.