It was something of a red-letter day with a special brunch Thursday at the Manteca Boys & Girls Club.
The Manteca Rotary Club’s brunch committee showed up shortly before 11 a.m. with their special grills and scrambled eggs, cooked pancakes and heated up slices of ham for the kids attending the summer programs at the club sitting at three long tables.
Rotarians had done this before and they turned out their plates of food like clockwork knowing their stations and keeping the kids smiling as they went through the food line — most having had to leave their jobs to make the early noontime event happen in a timely manner.
One young man, 11-year-old Casey Sieg and his friend Jordan, stood out as being unusually mature for their age as they said a quiet and warm “thank you” to Rotarians as they took their food plate. Sieg’s use of a knife and fork was right on the mark.
Sieg is going into the sixth grade at Sequoia School, and Jordan at Veritas across town, noting that he has two brothers and one sister and likes to use his spare time to play basketball when he is not doing chores at home for his mom. His family moved to Manteca recently and his chores at his former home in Colorado included washing dishes, taking out the trash and cleaning up after several dogs that belonged to his family and that of an aunt they were living with temporarily. Casey says he now hangs out at the club Monday through Friday because his parents both work.
Excitedly he said, “We’re coming out of being homeless and we are going to get a new house with three bedrooms with my sister and brothers having separate bedrooms and then my parents.”
He said that Hope Ministries has been a big help for his parents and his mother went to work for them and it is that agency that is helping them find their home.
Asked if he played any musical instruments, Casey replied: “I used to play the flute when we lived in Colorado and now I play football. Yesterday was my first day to play football here,” he said, adding that he hopes he can get back into music and playing the flute again at Sequoia School.
The Rotary committee providing the brunch included the club’s president Erin Nussbaumer and fellow Rotarians Paul Carmona, Alice Shidester, Charlie Halford, Glenn Kahl, Ron Laffranchi, Raj Lal, Michael Morowit, Al Nunes, Shawn Nussbaumer, Nick Obligacion, Mark Oliver, Jeff Shields, Gary Singh, Fred Stellhorn, Leon Sucht and Eddie Torres.
To contact Glenn Kahl, email gkahl@mantecabulletin.com.
