Community Give-away 2011
For a few hours on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, people in severe need and those who wanted to make their holidays a little brighter, came together at the 5th Annual Yolo County Children’s Alliance (YCCA) Community Giveaway Day at the Westfield Village Elementary School in West Sacramento. By any measurement, it was a huge success. These past few years have been especially difficult and YCCA is grateful to our sponsors, individual donors and the wonderful people at the Davis Linus Project who all contributed so much to help others in our community. The members of the Davis Linus Project made 300 beautiful blankets and donated them to the Children’s Alliance during the past year. The expressions of gratitude and delight were heartwarming as so many families accepted each blanket that had been lovingly made by a person in Yolo County to be given to someone else who needed a blanket for warmth.
Sponsors who donated at or above the $100 level include Sutter Health, Yolo County Supervisor Mike McGowan, West Sacramento City Council Member Chris Ledesma, Xyratex International, Centennial Rotary of West Sacramento, Davis Waste Removal, Comstock Johnson Architects, Laura and Robert Heintz, Karen K. Ziebron, Carrie Ziegler, Dr. Dick C. Huang, Don and Julie Saylor, Beverly and Robert Isman, Marty Swingle and Beverly Sandeen, Aldrete Communications, Vine, McKinnon & Hall, Dirk and Nora Brazil, and Larry Greene.
For information about making donations or volunteering for this year's event, call the main office of the Yolo County Children’s Alliance at 530-757-5558. Donations for food closet or community giveaway may be dropped off at any of the Children’s Alliance offices at the West Sacramento Family Resource Center, 1200 Anna Street, Room 21 or in Davis at 600 A Street, Suite Y.

Holiday Adopt-a-Family
Hundreds of families need a helping hand during the holidays so they can have a traditional holiday meal and give presents to their children. To help, the Children’s Alliance matched community organizations and businesses with families needing help. Most families needing help are identified through the YCCA programs that are already providing assistance with insurance, food stamps, tax return assistance, food assistance or the Step by Step home visiting program.
Once a family has requested help, the Children’s Alliance provides a list of families and information about the family’s needs to a matching organization or business. A date is established for the organization to deliver the food and gifts to the Children’s Alliance and then we deliver the items to the family, ensuring they know who the sponsors of the gifts were. The sponsors get into the spirit of the holidays and usually have the presents gift-wrapped when delivered to the YCCA.
This year, Sutter Health adopted 33 families, Kaiser Permanente adopted five families, Clark Pacific adopted 12 families. We also received donations from the Davis High basketball Team, from Our Lady of Grace church in West Sacramento. Beverly Sandeen, Vice Chancellor University Relations UC Davis, donated nearly 200 toys through her 50th birthday party.
Anyone can make a donation without adopting a family. Universal recipient gifts are given to children and families in need. For example, through Beverly Sandeen’ s generosity, dozens of children in Yolo County received at least one present during the holidays.

YCCA Holiday Party 2011
Attendees at the Children’s Alliance Holiday Party could smell Maria’s famous Pozole as soon as they walked in the door! More than 100 guests and supporters of the Children’s Alliance crowded into the conference room at 600 A. Street in Davis to share the holiday spirit with YCCA staff and members of the Child Abuse Prevention Council.
Sipping Katie’s delicious cider while sampling Maria’s pozole and other tempting appetizers and desserts, guests enjoyed festive holiday decorations, a running slide presentation of YCCA activities from throughout 2011, and took advantage of office tours at the fifth annual celebratory event to honor and thank YCCA’s partners and supporters. It was a wonderful event and now an annual tradition!