PAA Endowment quickly donates a LightStrike Germ-Zapping Robot to LPCH 

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Dear PAA friends,

I hope you are doing as well as can be expected during this unusual time.  It’s certainly a new experience to have so much leisure time.  Personally, I’ve caught up all the ironing (which only happens on New Year’s day if I iron, in the family room, while the rest watch football), I’m on my second 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, and I’ve just finished a 43 hour audio book while working in the garden.  If we could have an outdoor tea in my yard, this week, it’s ready.  Really, the saving grace has been the “Zoom” program on the computer.  My Bible Study class meets on Tuesday mornings, my husband is taking a Stanford class and we’ve  been doing family chats, all on Zoom.  Our whole family, of 25 members including those in Colorado Springs, and Baltimore, visited last night.  

While our auxiliary activities have been pretty much quieted, the staff at LPCH, of course, is working hard in the face of additional hardships.  We know that staffing is short as caution requires some to stay home, volunteering has been suspended so those hands are missing too and we hear that material resources are in short supply.

So, last Thursday evening, when we were made aware of a critical need facing LPCH in the fight against COVID 19: micro-level sanitation, quick action was taken.  The plea was for a LightStrike Germ-Zapping Robot with “intense pathogen killing power” that can disinfect an entire patient room in as little as 20 minutes.  This robot will keep the hospital clean by destroying deadly microorganisms critical in protecting patients, families and staff during this time.

Within minutes of hearing about this need, Association leadership contacted the members of the Endowment Committee, reached out to the Board Members of the Association of Auxiliaries, held a virtual vote (unanimous) and a mere 14 hours later, had a check for the $115,000 from our Association Endowment payout to deliver!  We are grateful to our Endowment Members, our Auxiliary Presidents, Second Delegates and all of our members for making this happen.  And happen so swiftly!  Good job everyone!

Of course we are looking forward to getting back to our old routines.  As soon as possible, we will reinstate Restaurants with Heart, reschedule our missed general meeting and get busy on the next fundraising event.  In the meantime, we are all in this together and need to support each other.  Please call if you need to chat.

Take care of yourself and keep up your spirits,

Marilyn

Friday, March 13th, 2020

Cancellation of PAA Activities Through the End of April

Dear Members and Friends,

Buying into the old adage, "Better Safe than Sorry", we are following the actions of the Association of Auxiliaries, the Foundation and the hospital and canceling Palo Alto Auxiliary's activities through the end of April.  We will let you know if circumstances require more time after that.

That means that we will postpone our general meeting scheduled for next Wednesday, March 18th at Mike's Cafe and, really sadly, cancel our Spring Tea and Fashion Show on April 26th.  We were putting together a lovely event and are very disappointed to have to call an end to it.  But.......we don't want to jeopardize anyone.

We will hope to reschedule the general meeting for May or June and, shortly, will begin planning for the Summer Garden Party at the Richardsons' home in Los Altos.  That date is August 15th, so be sure to put it on your calendars now.  

Wishing good health for you and your families,

Marilyn Anderson

President

February 22, 2020

Dear PAAers,

Remember when today (February 22^nd) was a holiday to celebrate George Washington’s birthday?  I, for one, don’t love having moved most holidays to Mondays but it does give us nice 3-day weekends.  Wonder how you used the last one.  I used some of the time to work on various plans for PAA.

Coming up in the next couple of months:

RESTAURANTS WITH HEART:  Next week, Monday, February 24th and Tuesday, February 25^thwe are at Divino’s in San Carlos.  This is one of my favorite restaurants.  The food is delicious, the staff is very welcoming and happy to be supporting LPCH.  It’s not too late to call Karen Stevens (650) 327-6809 and let her know you would like to attend.  Next month, we are at Rustic House in Los Altos.  Watch for the email or flyer from Ginny Wilson and plan to attend.  Restaurants with Heart is an important fundraiser for PAA and deserves our enthusiastic support.  So, invite your children, grandchildren, neighbors, friends etc. and enjoy lunch or dinner out while giving to the hospital. 

MARCH GENERAL MEETING:  We will meet on Wednesday, March 18^th at 11:30 for lunch at Mike’s Café, 2680 Middlefield Road, (one block off Oregon Expressway) in Palo Alto.  We will order from the menu but I do need to know who is coming so the restaurant can be prepared for our number.  Please call or text me at (650) 400-1969 or email: paloaltononie@gmail.com by Friday, March 6^th with your reservation. Following lunch we will have a short meeting and a speaker being arranged by Jeanne Berube from the Foundation.  She is hoping to get us the new doctor with the Teen Van.  

SPRING TEA, FASHION SHOW AND TRUNK SALE:  Plans are moving along for the Sunday, April 26^th event and I’m attaching the invitation for your information.  This is a lovely event for bringing your daughter(s) or gathering a group to attend together. Or even come on your own. The committee still needs lots of help – publicity, ticket sales, donation of raffle items, decoration creation, food preparation, set-up and clean-up on the day of the event.  Again, please call, text or email me with your offer of help.  Be sure this date is on your calendar!  And we are still looking for the donation of china cups and saucers and/or white china plates.  We don’t have nearly enough to use instead of renting dishes. 

SAD NEWS:  Irene Bell who passed away recently, joined Palo Alto Auxiliary in 1967 and lived in San Mateo.  We have sent a memorial donation to the hospital in her name but do not have any family contact information.  Can any of you help on that?

Enjoy the lovely weather – my daffodils, camellias and pansies are loving it.

Marilyn Anderson

President 

Presidents" Blog - 2019 In Review and 2020 Events

December 22, 2019

Dear Ladies of Palo Alto Auxiliary,

In this lovely, and quite busy season, I want you to know how much the work of our members and friends is effective and appreciated.

2019 has been a good year – our “Sip and Shop” event in March made a little money and many new friends. The Summer Garden Party with a Silent Auction was quite successful and, again, introduced some new folks to our work.  The Nutcracker Tea last month was lovely, fun for our many young guests and well received by their parents.  Then, too, we made $12,500. 

These events and your dues and donations have made it possible for PAA to make donations to LPCH totaling $45,000 this year!  Congratulations to all our members who have made that possible.  If any of you want to make “year end” donations, we will be happy to receive them and guarantee their good use.

You all know, by now, that the Annual Membership Luncheon will be back at the University Club (again guests of John McGilvray).  Please get your reservations in to Dallas Manning as soon as possible.  We will be talking about the Special Project for 2020 and, I think, you will be delighted with the auxiliaries have chosen t support.  It’s exciting!

We have started planning the Spring Fashion Show and Tea.  The date needs to be confirmed but it looks like it will be May 17^th at Allied Arts Guild.  So put that date on your calendar and you will hear more about it soon.  In the meantime, a number of you have mentioned having china cups and saucers that you no longer use. We think they would be perfect for our spring event so if you want to donate some, please let me know.  I’d be happy to pick them up.

As we end 2019, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukah and a great New Year.

Blessings,

Marilyn Anderson

President's Blog - May 2019

                                                                                                          

Dear Friends,

It looks like Spring is finally here – everything is blooming, allergies are reinserting themselves and we can put away our raincoats and umbrellas. It’s time to get outdoors and enjoy the sunshine.

Speaking of enjoying ourselves, the “Sip, Nibble and Shop” event that took the place of our Spring Tea on March 31^stwas lovely. Nan Larsson generously opened her home and our vendors set-up shop in several rooms.  Ladies sipped champagne, nibbled on treats offered in the kitchen and shopped and shopped and shopped.  We all had a good time and generated about $2,000 for this year’s special project: “Caring for Hearts”.

Two days later, on April 2^nd, the annual Celebration of Auxiliaries was held at the Sharon Heights Golf and Country Club.  While all the auxiliaries were celebrated and appreciated, this year’s event was special as it was the 100^thanniversary of the founding of Charter Auxiliary!!!  What an example of dedication, creativity and service that group has been for all the rest of us.  Jeanne Berube, Malissa Magallanez and their crew from LPFCH put together a lovely time together.   The large crowd enjoyed a wonderful auxiliary historical display, inspirational speakers, beautiful tables, the best salad I’ve ever eaten and raffle items that raised another $1,600 for “Caring for Hearts”.

The “Thursday Girls” will be gathering for lunch on Thursday, April 26^that 11:30 at Cibo’s, 3398 El Camino in Palo Alto.  RSVP to JoAnnPfost@gmail.comor to JoAnn at (650) 967-4679.  If there are other “Day” groups meeting, please let us know so we can put you on the calendar.  

The next thing on the calendar for PAA is our Restaurants with Heart lunches and dinners at Kabul Afghan Cuisine in San Carlos.  I hope you remember the staff’s warm welcome and the wonderful food that is so plentiful everyone takes home enough for another meal. Be sure to go on line to: paloaltoauxiliary.com or call (650) 364-2588 to make your reservations.  

Restaurants with Heart (capably run by Nancy Cameron and her committee) is PAA’s very dependable fundraiser and needs your support.  Get a your family together or a group of friends and enjoy an evening out.  The more the merrier!

Also, upcoming, is our May General Meeting.  We will meet at Allied Arts Guild, 75 Arbor Drive in Menlo Park at 10:00 a.m. with a no-host lunch following at the Wisteria Café there at Allied Arts.  This will be in conjunction with our Restaurants with Heart program in May.  Look for an email or snail mail invitation coming soon.  It will include reservation information.  

Happy Spring!!

Marilyn Anderson

January PAA Newsletter

For those of you who missed our annual meeting today, I’m sending these notes as our newsletter this month.  We had a lovely luncheon with about 50 members and three guests of members. In addition we had three invited guests:

            Debbie Burkholder, Director of Auxiliary Relations

             Malissa Magallanez, Auxiliaries Relations Associate

             And our guest speaker, Shawna Montoya, parent of an LPCH patient

I thanked our hostess at the University Club, Catherine McGilvray , our luncheon organizer Gerry Nelson and our reservations and nametags guru, Dallas Manning. Past presidents were also acknowledged and photographed. Members and guests heard a short summary from me as outgoing president, mostly reported below.

In 2017, we started the year with 162 members and ended with 153.  We were missing some board members all year but despite a reduced number of members and active board members, we did manage to raise enough to make $50,000 for our annual gift despite losing our lucrative American Girl project which has provided the bulk of our gift for several years. Last Spring was slow, as I was disappointed that we did not accomplish a literary based event last year although we spend a lot of time on it. 

In August, the second annual Summer Garden party was popular and a lot of fun. In Nancy L.’s beautiful back yard, we raised $11,900 from the auction of goods, services and events about twice what was made the first year. Many of the popular items like golf games, sports tickets, dinners, wine baskets and mountain cabins were donated by our own members. Now is the time to be thinking of what you can donate for next year’s auction. The proceeds from the Garden Party were given to “Talk, Read Sing.” the literacy program for the very young that was the designated annual charity for all of the auxiliaries.

Restaurants with Heart, started and chaired the first three months of 2017 by Marlene Bollhoffer, was revamped and continued another 7 months by Karen Stevens, Ginny Wilson and myself. It was expanded to three new locations and we introduced job sharing with six new hostesses. We also found a new and enthusiastic coordinator in Nancy Cameron to continue the program which earned a profit of about $11,700.  You can help out by signing up to be a hostess on a day you plan to come and eat. You can also  sign up with Karen Stevens online or by phone for the next RwH dinner at Sultana on January 29th  and 30^th.

Our direct donation campaign where I mistakenly said that the requested  NICU recliners also rocked, earned about $6,000 much to my surprise and delight. We added enough from PAA general funds to complete the gift to the NICU.

 Thanks to Sharon Brugos, the Holiday Boutique at Allied Arts raised another $800 in December despite selling only cookbooks, totes, aprons and a few other items. 

A few members under Luisa Pliska’s guidance are continuing to sell cookbooks both by individual orders and to several commercial venues and are down to about the last 240 books. Dallas Manning and Nancy Bronstein and others made and delivered 112 totes to the hospital in December.  Gerry Nelson, her loyal students and other members made and donated 134 bears to the hospital in 2017 .

A huge part of our gift to the hospital comes from the multitude of handmade items by our marvelous Thora’s thimbles ladies and associates. Together they produced about 720 cough pillows, 248 owls and some 200 other items including respirator covers, bags for the Teen Van and Beads of Courage, and knitted blankets. Their collective time spent is over 700 hours. In addition, we have the wonderful seamstress who alone donates over 300 blankets to the NICU. If you would like to join the circle or stuff and sew at home, please see Ellen Smith. 

In addition to the many PAA projects we have several members who also work with the Affiliates, including Packard Pantry, Teen Van, Dec My Room, and Hearts and Hands. Each one of them could use more help.

Former president, Nancy Larsson, announced the upcoming March 4^th event: a Fashion Show and Trunk Sale to be held at Allied Arts and in collaboration with AA Guild. She has a great committee of some “older” members and a number of young members , some of them former American Girl mothers, who are organizing this new event. Watch for your invitation coming soon!

I then introduced Mr. Brian Perrone, the Senior Vice President for Development and Administration of the Packard Foundation and ask him to receive our mock-up check for our 2017 cash donation of $50,000. He thanked us and spoke a few minutes about the new hospital and its state of the art design.  Debbie Burkholder also spoke about the value of volunteers and the many physical gifts that PAA produces. 

Then I presented our President Pro-tem for the first trimester of 2018. Currently serving as treasurer, Marilyn Anderson agreed to fill in as president when no one else did. Marilyn spoke briefly on her hopes for creative new ideas and events to start this year. She then introduced our speaker, Shawna Montoya, who told her a stunning account of her child who collapsed at school from an unknown heart defect, was airlifted to Packard,  treated for 3 weeks by a multitude of doctors, nurses and therapists and has made a miraculous and almost complete recovery. Her role as the mother of a severely sick child was fascinating and moving to hear. 

Afterwards, we enjoyed a lovely lunch at the University Club.

Sarah Beetem, 2017 President

November News

It was great to see all those who came to our November membership meeting held at iTalico Restaurant last week.  We had 26 members which is about a dozen more than when we aren’t having lunch so I conclude that we all like to eat!  We voted on our gift to LPCH for 2017 which should end up at $45,000 if we continue to collect direct donations and dues. This will be presented ceremoniously to the Foundation at our January luncheon.

Monday morning I mailed each member an envelope with the 2018 dues notices and invitations to our membership luncheon on Wednesday, January 17, 2018 at the University Club. You will mail two envelopes. The dues check with any changes in address or phone numbers is to be returned to Mary Koeppen and the luncheon reservation and check go to Dallas Manning. Thank you to Catherine McGilvray for the sponsorship at the University Club.

After socializing with a cup of coffee or tea beginning at 9:30 AM, we will have a meeting at 10:30, speaker at 11:30 and lunch at 12.  Our guest speaker will be Shawna  Montoya,  the mother of a small cardiac patient at LPCH.  Her child collapsed at school in Half Moon Bay, arrived at LPCH by helicopter and eventually received a pacemaker. It should be inspiring and informative.

As I mentioned briefly at our November meeting, our board has determined two areas where we might look for some new members. One is “empty nest” mothers who volunteered with their children who have now moved on to college and the second group is “recently retired” women who are used to being busy.  I’m hoping that some of you might invite a friend or neighbor to join us, and the January luncheon seems like a great place to start.  Your guest would hear about last year’s activities and next year’s plans as well as a personal experience of care at LPCH.  If we don’t want to continue to shrink in size perhaps we can all make an effort to include someone new.  If you need a ride to the University Club or can offer one, please contact Sarah.

On our website is a calendar that helps us to coordinate activities and is updated by our corresponding secretary, Mary Anne York. If the ladies who meet for lunch according to their former restaurant day shift (like Monday ladies) would let Mary Anne know of their dates, we could avoid having two activities at once.  Our membership meetings have moved around a bit this year as we try to find what works best for the most members.

Our direct donation drive for the NICU recliners has sparkled this week.  Malissa reported that as of Tuesday, November 21st we have had 31 donors totaling $5175.  Thank you all.  I would like to wind it up by the end of December but of course would never turn down a donation!

Remember to come and shop at the Holiday Boutique at Allied Arts on December 2^nd from 10 to 4.  Sharon Brugos and a small team will be selling our cookbooks and some tote bags and few collector dolls that have been donated to us. Last year I saw some small decorated trees made by Allied Arts members and thought they would be a perfect gift for a housebound senior or neighbor. The trees will return this year and will benefit the “Talk, Read, Sing project.”

I am pleased to announce that Nancy Cameron will take on the coordinator position for Restaurants with Heart.  Karen Stevens will continue with Reservations and Accounting and Ginny Wilson with publicity. They will be helped by Audrey, Marlene, Luisa, Erika, Cathy M., Kathy S., and Marilyn.  In November, we held a meeting of all those interested in helping with the program. Nancy C. would like to hear from you if you have restaurants that you’d like to recommend.

RwH can use more hostesses (a one meal time shift obligation and not every month) so if you’d like to volunteer please tell Nancy C. I think that RwH will be in good hands for 2018.  We hope you will join us for lunch or dinner in the New Year.

As no one has come forward to serve as president in 2018, Nancy Larsson has gone with a “president pro tem” program by asking others to serve for a trimester.  Marilyn Anderson has graciously accepted to be Jan 17 to April 30^th followed by Kathy Squellati for May to August.  Nancy still needs a third trimester coordinator.  Meanwhile we anticipate fewer meetings and more correspondence by newsletter so be sure to read it to see what is happening.

March will bring an exciting new event to PAA.  Nancy Larsson has a committee working to present a Fashion Show/ Trunk Sale and Tea on Sunday, March  4^th at  Allied Arts. It’s a joint venture with AAG and looks to be a lot of fun.  

Happy Holidays to all. Please remember PAA/LPCH for end of the year donations. Please return your January lunch reservations and 2018 dues.  There will not be a December newsletter but we will see you all in January. 

Sarah