St. Thomas Aquinas Human Concerns Committee Meeting Minutes, January 27, 2009

Attendance:
Paul Chestnut, Laura Chiu, Ruth Chippendale, George Chippendale, Sasha Madison, Mary Fong, Terry Atkinson, Patricia Markee, Walt Lundin, Nancy Ng

1. Faith-Sharing/Question of the Week - Ruth

2. The December minutes were approved.

OLD BUSINESS

3. Death penalty forum
Terry was not present, but he had sent his thoughts:
◆ I am planning to go to the Green Day Conference on February 7th.
◆ I am planning to request a meeting with the Diocesan HCC to ask for their support for arranging a meeting of Clergy Leaders including Bishop McGrath with the District Attorney requesting her not to seek the death penalty.
◆ The General Assembly of the Council of Churches will be on February 22nd. I will send you more details when I get more information.

4. Unused gift cards
Laura reported that she collected eight unused gift cards worth about $150.

NEW BUSINESS

5. Holiday Appeal for InnVision
Mary presented information about InnVision. They have received more donations after the recent appeal for funds. We sent the money from last year's Undie Sunday to the Clothes Closet. Mary passed around pictures of the Clothes Closet.

6. Undie Sunday
Nancy discussed plans for Undie Sunday on February 16 and 17. She passed out a signup sheet for people to help in the vestibules before and after Mass.

7. Day Worker Center of Mountain View
Two recent events were noted:
- Mayor's Award for the City of Mountain View for a social services program.
- Original documentary on the DWCMV, "El Centro Obrero."
Patricia said that a building has been purchased, and plans are being developed to move in. Permits from the city of Mountain View are required, and there will be a hearing at 4 p.m. on February 11 at City Hall. The DWCMV hopes that the permits will be obtained in spite of the complaints from some neighborhoods about the presence of the center.

8. Upgrading the software for the Saint Vincent de Paul food programs
George Chippendale has a software program to organize the St. Vincent de Paul food contributions to poor families in East Palo Alto. He set up the system himself, and it is not user-friendly. He would like a new, revised system to replace the existing one, so that more people can learn it.

A meeting was held on December 13 at the Food Closet to get a description and demonstration of the food distribution program from George. Present: Frank Flynn, George Chippendale, Kamal Mansour, Terry Atkinson, Simon Chiu, Paul Chestnut, and Mary Washburn. Frank Flynn is taking the lead on software development, and Simon Chiu volunteered to learn the system.

The system has two main functions:
1) It keeps track of families. There is a database of families, where the names, ages, gender, address, income, and expenses are listed. The address of each family is used in a table lookup to determine the neighborhood, so that the delivery of goods can be properly set up.
2) Information for telephone call-ins for food. The system determines how much food (number of potatoes, number of packages of rice, etc.) to deliver. Packages of food to go out in trucks to the families are formulated.

Frank has started to place the first function on the internet so that multiple volunteers can use it. Simon Chiu has made progress learning how to use the food distribution program. We need additional people to learn the program.

9. Invitation to the Diocesan Green Conference - Laura
Laura described the conference, to be held on February 7 at Santa Clara University.

10. Parish Volunteer Appreciation Dinner - Laura
The dinner will be held on February 7. All volunteers for St. Thomas functions are invited. The parish staff will prepare and serve the dinner.

11. Re-cap of a talk by Robert Jensen - Laura
Laura passed out a flyer that described the talk by Robert Jensen on January 13. The title: "Beyond elections: Staying Committed to Justice and Sustainability."

12. Wallet reminders for food drive - Laura<

13. Bread for the World - Offering of Letters
A date was set for the annual Offering of Letters: May 17. We need a person to help organize this event.

14. What's On Your Mind?
George said that the coming recession will be a catastrophe for poor people. The undocumented suffer first. He attended a meeting with the head of the Human Services Agency in San Mateo. He says that the CPA (Children's Protective Services) can take children away from their parents when they can't pay the rent. That seems wrong.

15. Volunteer for Faith-sharing/Question of the Week
Patricia volunteered.

Next meeting - February 24