Nonprofit Cecelia’s Closet hands out necessities at annual Oktoberfest
More than 500 visit Cecelia’s Closet
Published in November 15 – 28, 2017 issue of Gilroy Life
Tony Harris displays a San Francisco Giants shirt at the Oct. 28 Octoberfest event at Cecelia’s Closet.
Photo by Marty Cheek
The generosity of South Valley residents was on full display Oct. 28 when hundreds of families from Morgan Hill and Gilroy received clothes, food and other items at Cecelia’s Closet’s fourth annual Oktoberfest celebration.
People were lining up around 7:30 a.m. along Peebles Avenue in the Madrone district of Morgan Hill to wait for the four-hour event to start at 10 a.m., said Cecelia Ponzini, founder of the nonprofit The Edward Boss Prado Foundation. It runs Cecelia’s Closet and Food Pantry to help families in need. Open to all without questions asked, the event provided people with gently-used and brand-new clothing items, hygiene products, Halloween costumes, haircuts, flu shots and a bag of produce for their family meals.
“This place has been packed all morning,” Ponzini said. “We do the Fit for Fall event for back-to-school clothing for students, but Oktoberfest is for anyone. This is open for the whole communities of Morgan Hill and Gilroy.”
Many leaders of the community helped out with the Oktoberfest including Morgan Hill City Council Members Caitlin Jachimowicz and Rene Spring, Police Chief David Swing, Morgan Hill Unified School District Superintendent Steve Betando and many others. The event was festive with members of the Morgan Hill Kiwanis Club serving hot dogs and chips and a clown making balloon animals for the kids.
“We have a lot going on. I bet you 500 people came today,” Ponzini said. “The line at 7:45 a.m. was a mile long down the road with cars. I told them it started at 10 a.m. but they said they wanted to wait.”
The day before, more than 60 volunteers helped set up the tables and pop-up tents and other chores to prepare for the families in an organized style. Local businesses that participated by providing volunteers included Guild Mortgage, Bank of America, and Commonwealth Credit Union.
The Prado Foundation is involved in many activities through the end of the year to help local families. Starting Nov. 1, containers will collect from the community toys that will be distributed to South County school children during the holidays. The foundation also has a Thanksgiving Dinner Giveaway event scheduled for Nov. 22.
If someone might wish to donate to that cause, they can write a check to the Prado Foundation and put “turkey” on the memo line. The foundation prefers not to have frozen turkeys donated because it is difficult to store hundreds of the birds prior to Thanksgiving.
The foundation was started in 2013 in honor of Ponzini’s son Edward Boss Prado who died at the age of 29. As a child, Edward was sensitive to the needs of other children and was always quick to offer help. For example, as a child he noticed a young boy often came to school hungry and without a lunch, so he asked Ponzini to prepare an extra lunch bag. Thus, the Edward Boss Prado Foundation is built on Edward’s values of generosity, sensitivity, and of good neighbors. Its mission is “to work with relentless passion to empower people who are in need with resources that foster dignity and respect.”
Many students in the Gilroy Unified School District are eligible for free or reduced lunch, an indicator of very low income. Many more families earn slightly more and may not be eligible for free lunch but are still low income and struggle day to day. Currently, the Morgan Hill Unified School District is the foundation’s largest referral partner, sending families in need to many of its programs. Community Solutions, the South County’s largest social service organization is also a referral partner.
“This is what we do,” Ponzini said.
