Agency: St. Helena Catholic Church
Support Needed: $10,000
Purpose: Operating expenses for day-labor center

For nearly 15 years, St. Helena Catholic Church has been in the matchmaking business. The Work Connection program is an employment service that links adults with a variety of businesses around Napa County. Originally intended to connect farm workers with wineries and vineyard management companies, the employment service now represents workers with a variety of skills, including gardening, masonry, housekeeping, and care giving for children or elderly. On the employer side, clients now also include small businesses, individuals, and restaurants. Work Connection, which is located in St. Helena, makes matches six days a week. Both migrants and residents line up before 7:00 a.m. to sign in and indicate the type of job they are seeking. A program director, who is bilingual in Spanish and English, interviews the job seekers about their skills and language fluency. Employers either phone in or stop by to talk with the program director about the type and number of workers needed. Placements are made on the spot, and jobs can last a day or two, several weeks, or even months. Employers are required to pay at least $10 to $12 per hour, depending on the type of work; neither party is charged a fee for their connection. While employees wait for their matches to be made, Work Connection also provides support services, such as: English lessons; financial literacy classes; health information workshops conducted by Clinic Olé; or, appointments with a representative from the Mexican Consulate to obtain passports or ID cards. Work Connection continues to have an impact--the number of job seekers averages 20 a day, and gets as high as 70 during the wine industry's peak seasons; women now comprise about 30 percent of workers. In 2007, job placements resulted in at least $800,000 in earnings for these adults, who would otherwise be unemployed. Work Connection also has placed nearly 70 people in permanent jobs. The program's annual budget is $42,500. Grants from the City of St. Helena, California Human Development Corp., Newman's Own Foundation, and the Farmworker Committee will fund all but $10,000. Your support would ensure that Work Connection keeps making matches that can transform people's earning power--and their lives.

Agency: Paws for Healing Inc.
Support Needed: $4,675
Purpose: Printing costs for volunteer visiting cards

House calls may seem like a relic of our past, but at Paws for Healing (PFH) they are de rigueur. For 10 years, the nonprofit has been sending trained teams of human handlers and therapy dogs, called Canine-Assisted Therapy (CAT) Teams, to visit support groups, convalescent homes and public libraries. All Teams are volunteers and go through a four-step vetting process: evaluation of the dog by a certified canine trainer for temperament and safety; training sessions about working in healthcare and education settings; obtaining vaccinations or getting finger printed; and two mentoring sessions with an experienced Team. Once certified, the human-canine duo travels at least twice a month to their assigned site and visits with patients, residents, students, family members, doctors and nurses. For example, at a visit to Napa Valley Hospice & Adult Day Services, a Team makes the rounds to caregivers and patients, who can pet and groom the dog. Recipients of canine therapy benefit from increased self-confidence and well-being, lower blood pressure and accelerated recovery rates from illness. In Napa County, PFH has about 90 volunteers who visit 20 different sites across the Valley; each Team spends time with roughly 200 people a year. Volunteer retention is higher than average, at more than 50 percent from year to year. PFH, which is run and staffed by its all-volunteer Board of Directors, has found visiting (or "calling") cards to be an effective outreach tool for their volunteers. Similar to baseball cards, the calling cards feature a photo of the "canine therapist" on one side and provide the dog's "stats" on the other. Volunteers give the cards out as mementos to the adults and children they visit, or leave them behind to let those who are not in their rooms know the pooches have stopped in. Residents in assisted living centers like to display the cards, and children collect them and show them off to their classmates. The nonprofit, which has an annual operating budget of about $45,000, wants to provide calling cards to its volunteer cadre in Napa County. A set of 250 for each CAT Team costs about $70. Support of this project would stock the toolkits of these dedicated volunteers.

Agency: De La Salle Institute
Support Needed: $25,000
Purpose: Meet a challenge grant to pay operating expenses for Christian Brothers Ranch

"Best in Show" has special meaning for a group of at-risk Napa youngsters, who head up to Mont La Salle after school and get hands-on experience caring for and raising farm animals. Christian Brothers Ranch was started by De La Salle Institute to teach kids animal husbandry, promote personal responsibility, and provide a way for them to earn money for post-secondary education. The Ranch is a non-sectarian program, modeled after FFA and 4-H, and serves youth, ages 7 to 19, who are from low-income families. The kids raise lambs, goats, pigs or cattle that will be shown and sold at Napa's Town & Country Fair. Proceeds from animal sales are deposited into an interest-bearing account held by De La Salle, and students access their moneys after graduating high school, to pay for vocational training or college. The Ranch's clients are foster youth, kids living in poverty, and children whose parents are imprisoned or involved with gangs or drugs. Kids must attend year-round, rain or shine. Upon arrival, each student digs in to the day's chores, which include: cleaning pens and barns, as well as feeding, grooming and exercising the animals. Staff (a full-time program director and an assistant) mentor the kids, and help with financial aid and scholarship forms, as well as college applications. A credentialed teacher comes a few days a week to tutor participants who are struggling academically. Results of the program are promising: 19 students have matriculated from high school into college or trade school, and all have been first in their family to do so. Annual budget for the Ranch is $430,000, which pencils out to about $18,000 per student; this reflects the cost of providing intensive mentoring, along with transportation, work gear and replacement animals for participants each year. The Ranch earns about $130,000 annually selling animals that don't go to the Fair, plus another $50,000 in foundation grants and private donations. The balance is covered by De La Salle Institute. The Ranch needs to raise $25,000 by December 31, 2008 to meet a challenge grant. Your support would help this unique youth development program achieve its goal.