Celebrity Baby Shower Gift

  The day Helen Johnson and her large, extended family decided to forgo Christmas presents to throw a dinner for the needy, the stock market probably dropped a few points.

Four generations of family members — more than 40 people — spread across the country got together in June and agreed to put aside material gifts and host a dinner for the needy on Feb. 27 at the Church of the 49ers in Columbia.
 

 It started a year ago when Helen Johnson, 88, of Columbia, was approached by her youngest daughter, Sally Van Bolt, with a proposition.

Van Bolt had read a newspaper article about a family who decided that they would gather at Christmastime and recount ways they had improved the lives of others in lieu of standard gift giving.

As it turned out, Johnson had clipped the same article.

“At our annual family reunion in June, we brought that up to everyone,” Johnson said. “We talked to everyone beforehand over the computer, said we’d like to discuss it with them and had them think it over. We had a vote on Thanksgiving.”

No one dissented.

At the Thanksgiving meeting, the family decided to reach out to the community through their appetites. The money normally directed to presents would go toward food and supplies to feed over 100 people in Tuolumne County.

Though it may sound like a daunting task, Johnson spearheads a dinner of like size every Monday night in Faith Hall at the Church of the 49ers.

She leads a team of around eight volunteers that staff an industrial-size kitchen to create massive dinners and to-go meals so people who need nourishment or simply companionship can come together in an atmosphere of acceptance.

Johnson started the program in 1978 after another parishioner put forth a puzzling question.

“When we were at prayer one day, one of the members said what was going on? There were so many needy, and why can’t we do something?” Johnson said.

Through donations from the Church of the 49ers and St. Anne’s Catholic Church, also in Columbia, Johnson gathered the resources to make a dent in local hunger. At that point, she had only a few volunteers and not too many takers. But since word of the dinners got out, crowds of 100 turn out every Monday.

“Helen feels very strongly that Christ’s mandate to her is to feed his people,” said the Rev. Janet Russell, of the Church of the 49ers.

And feed them she shall. Since the family decision, Johnson has been on the lookout for good buys and has begun amassing a mountain of food in preparation for the dinner.

The family left the buying to her, she said, because of her shopping savvy and experience in planning menus that can appeal to a diverse crowd.

As envisioned, the menu will consist of pulled pork and gravy on hot hamburger rolls, a vegetable, salad, garlic bread, dessert and a beverage.  

“We’re going to serve until we run out of food,” Johnson declared.

Johnson hopes that almost 30 of her family members will turn out for the evening to cook, serve and help clean up.

Johnson, her husband, Ray, and three daughters, Van Bolt, Patty Penwell and Kathy Nystrom, live in the area, while a son, Bill McCleary, will commute from Sunnyvale.

The family doesn’t know if it will continue as an alternative-gift giving tradition, but it’s certainly up for discussion, Johnson said.

For my mother’s 50th I did this and it was very special.
I sent a packet to all of her friends and family. In the packet was a letter asking them to write on a special card (I provided) a story, a well wish, or something else special the two of them share, also in the packet was a photo safe mailer.
I gave everyone a due date to send back the card and some photos. I then spent a couple of weeks and made a scrap book. It was so special for her to have memories on paper. It was also great for me, to find out things I never knew about her and see pictures I had never seen before.
It will be a gift that she will have with her when people can’t be near and after she passes it will be a great way for the younger generations of your family to get to know her.
If you like the idea let me know and I can forward to you the letter I sent out and now would be the time to get the letters out in the mail.