Sonoma County residents to aid refugees in Greece CHRIS SMITH
Chris Smith: Sonoma County residents to aid refugees in Greece CHRIS SMITH
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
November 21, 2015
Spring Maxfield from time to time envisions a trip to Greece: swimming in the turquoise water, tanning in the Mediterranean sun, dining on spanakopita and loukoumades.
The Santa Rosa arts advocate and events producer who co-founded the popular Handcar Regatta leaves Tuesday on a Greek journey on which she is likely to do none of the above.
“I’m kind of going into the unknown,” said the 43-year-old mother of two.
She’ll travel with Graton apple rancher Sheldon Rosenberg, who has collected and had shipped to the Greek isle of Lesbos about 4,000 pairs of socks. First on the Sonoma County duo’s list is to distribute them to the Syrians who typically are in misery or worse when they arrive on Greek soil and remain that way in refugee camps.
Beyond the sock distribution, Maxfield is uncertain what else she may do for refugees during her stay, which she intends to last about a month.
“I have strong organizing skills. Maybe that’s what I’ll end up doing,” she said. “I’d be very happy picking up trash as well.”
The trip was Rosenberg’s idea.
“This crisis requires our active participation,” the military veteran from west Sonoma County wrote in a GoFundMe appeal for donations for the purchase of socks, underwear, diapers, shoes, hygiene and medical supplies and other necessities for the some of the more than 300,000 people who’ve fled the killing in Syria and now are encamped on Lesbos.
Rosenberg said the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere by radical Islamists, at least one of whom may have traveled the same route as the refugees, cannot succeed “in turning our caring and giving nature towards one of vengeance.”
A benefactor who asked not to be identified offered to pay the travel expenses of Rosenberg and a companion. It rattled Maxfield for Rosenberg to ask her to go with him.
She cited to him a litany of reasons she couldn’t possibly fly off to Greece just now: Her children, her husband, their home, her work.
Then it dawned on her that those are the very reasons that she must go and do whatever she can to assist and comfort the desperate refugees on Lesbos.
“My grandmother is scared beyond belief,” she said. She admits she’s nervous about the trip, too.
But she’s getting packed.
...
AT LEAST THE CLOCK: I’m working on a story about a fascinating man, a clock repairman who’s named Cyrus Wind Dancer but whose old friends know him as Cy Eaton.
He mentioned that among the keepsake clocks currently at his shop in Rincon Valley are one that came from Cobb and one from Middletown.
Members of both families brought the clocks in for servicing before the Valley fire.
And both lost their homes and just about everything else to the September inferno.
At some point it occurred to both Lake County families: As they start over, thank goodness they’ll still have something from the past, they’ll still have the clock.
...
THE LIVING ROOM, you probably know, is a busy and essential day center in downtown Santa Rosa that serves homeless and struggling women and their children.
After years of operating out of Church of the Incarnation, the good people who run The Living Room have obtained a new space: a cluster of old buildings with good bones on Cleveland Avenue, between College Avenue and Coddingtown Mall.
Days ago, the Living Room staff and board ceremoniously broke ground at the new spot, where work is underway to construct a commercial kitchen, showers and bathrooms and room for play, meals, counseling, laundry and quiet mom-and-child time.
Benefactors have donated about half of the $1.5 million that will be needed to complete and landscape the new home of The Living Room. Executive Director Cheryl Parkinson says any help toward finishing the project and opening the place to women and kids will be most welcome.
For more information, drop into www.thelivingroomsc.org.
Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and [email protected]. On Twitter @CJSPD
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
November 21, 2015
Spring Maxfield from time to time envisions a trip to Greece: swimming in the turquoise water, tanning in the Mediterranean sun, dining on spanakopita and loukoumades.
The Santa Rosa arts advocate and events producer who co-founded the popular Handcar Regatta leaves Tuesday on a Greek journey on which she is likely to do none of the above.
“I’m kind of going into the unknown,” said the 43-year-old mother of two.
She’ll travel with Graton apple rancher Sheldon Rosenberg, who has collected and had shipped to the Greek isle of Lesbos about 4,000 pairs of socks. First on the Sonoma County duo’s list is to distribute them to the Syrians who typically are in misery or worse when they arrive on Greek soil and remain that way in refugee camps.
Beyond the sock distribution, Maxfield is uncertain what else she may do for refugees during her stay, which she intends to last about a month.
“I have strong organizing skills. Maybe that’s what I’ll end up doing,” she said. “I’d be very happy picking up trash as well.”
The trip was Rosenberg’s idea.
“This crisis requires our active participation,” the military veteran from west Sonoma County wrote in a GoFundMe appeal for donations for the purchase of socks, underwear, diapers, shoes, hygiene and medical supplies and other necessities for the some of the more than 300,000 people who’ve fled the killing in Syria and now are encamped on Lesbos.
Rosenberg said the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere by radical Islamists, at least one of whom may have traveled the same route as the refugees, cannot succeed “in turning our caring and giving nature towards one of vengeance.”
A benefactor who asked not to be identified offered to pay the travel expenses of Rosenberg and a companion. It rattled Maxfield for Rosenberg to ask her to go with him.
She cited to him a litany of reasons she couldn’t possibly fly off to Greece just now: Her children, her husband, their home, her work.
Then it dawned on her that those are the very reasons that she must go and do whatever she can to assist and comfort the desperate refugees on Lesbos.
“My grandmother is scared beyond belief,” she said. She admits she’s nervous about the trip, too.
But she’s getting packed.
...
AT LEAST THE CLOCK: I’m working on a story about a fascinating man, a clock repairman who’s named Cyrus Wind Dancer but whose old friends know him as Cy Eaton.
He mentioned that among the keepsake clocks currently at his shop in Rincon Valley are one that came from Cobb and one from Middletown.
Members of both families brought the clocks in for servicing before the Valley fire.
And both lost their homes and just about everything else to the September inferno.
At some point it occurred to both Lake County families: As they start over, thank goodness they’ll still have something from the past, they’ll still have the clock.
...
THE LIVING ROOM, you probably know, is a busy and essential day center in downtown Santa Rosa that serves homeless and struggling women and their children.
After years of operating out of Church of the Incarnation, the good people who run The Living Room have obtained a new space: a cluster of old buildings with good bones on Cleveland Avenue, between College Avenue and Coddingtown Mall.
Days ago, the Living Room staff and board ceremoniously broke ground at the new spot, where work is underway to construct a commercial kitchen, showers and bathrooms and room for play, meals, counseling, laundry and quiet mom-and-child time.
Benefactors have donated about half of the $1.5 million that will be needed to complete and landscape the new home of The Living Room. Executive Director Cheryl Parkinson says any help toward finishing the project and opening the place to women and kids will be most welcome.
For more information, drop into www.thelivingroomsc.org.
Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and [email protected]. On Twitter @CJSPD