Sydnee Navarro started the Giving Tree Project about a dozen years ago.
What started out as her Manteca Youth Focus’ Community Advocacy Project is now a Legacy Project.
The Giving Tree Project is the annual free Christmas gift giveaway to those in the Hope Ministries Family Shelters, consisting of the Raymus House (women / children), HOPE Family Shelter (families), and Building Hope (transitional living).
Two carloads filled with bags with gift-wrapped packages – all wish-list items – were delivered Monday to the Raymus House to help bring the yuletide to 21 families and 89 people.
Sydnee Navarro – now age 22 and a first-semester law student at the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law – and her brother, Connor, 20, who attends UOP and is studying Media Arts, continue on with the Giving Tree Project, getting much support of friends and family.
“We do (the Giving Tree) mostly online these days,” said their mother Jane, who works at Delta College – many of the same donors and a few new ones do their part to provide Christmas gifts for those in the local family shelters.
She noted that during the 12 years, the Giving Tree Project has benefitted a total 221 families and 817 people.
Hope Ministries CEO Cecily Ballungay remembered that very first year.
Sydnee was 10 and attending Woodward Elementary School. She contacted Ballungay, who was in her first year at Hope Ministries, on doing her part in making a difference during the holidays.
Navarro’s inspiration was based on reading a newspaper story back then on local homelessness.
She started the Giving Tree Project which later became her Community Advocacy Project during her time with Manteca Youth Focus.
After Sydnee graduated from Manteca High and left for college, Connor took over and kept it going with the Giving Tree Project.
Ballungay and others from Hope Ministries are grateful to the Navarro family for their holiday efforts.
“They always go out of their way to make (the Giving Tree Project) a priority,” she noted.
HOPE Ministries is a faith-based organization dedicated to providing shelter and services to homeless and low-income families – the hope here is to cultivate self-respect, self-reliance, and spiritual direction.
In 1993, the Raymus House started as a nursing home. It was a donation by the Antone and Marie Raymus Foundation for the purpose of serving homeless women and children.
