THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412160232
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 226 lines
It's that time of year when the world is filled with color and light and human souls leave the boundaries of self and remember they are related to a multitude.
Bells ring softly on a cold wind and harried shoppers pause, counting their blessings and dipping into purses and coat pockets to spread their own holiday happiness to a stranger's home.
In a million such moments, the spirit of Christmas soars.
NO ONE NEEDED to explain the meaning of Christmas to William M. Sklar.
If he were alive today, he would be with several of his friends from the Ambassadors Club, grabbing grocery carts and forming a human train to wind up and down the aisles of a local grocery store.
His friends will still meet.
Charles R. Byrd, as usual, will lead the group, picking items off the shelf, followed by other members throwing the same items into theirs.
At the checkout counter, each cart will be filled with everything from the turkey to laundry detergent, totaling somewhere between $100 and $150.
Boxed for delivery, the club's gift will feed a needy family far beyond Christmas Day.
For the past two years, Sklar was chairman of the club's Christmas basket project. He had been on the committee since he joined the organization.
The 62-year-old commercial pilot was killed this summer when his plane and a Navy helicopter collided over the Chesapeake Bay.
But when his friends gather this weekend, Sklar will still be very much a part of the gathering.
Janice Sklar asked at the time of her husband's death that donations be made to the holiday project in lieu of flowers. Those donations could allow the club to help as many as 20 families this year.
``I think he'd think it was a wonderful idea,'' said John Kirchmier, who stepped in as chairman of this year's project.
``Bill was a good guy who just liked to help people,'' Kirchmier said. ``I guess this was his way of doing it.''
Janice Sklar also plans to take part in the work today.
``The last couple of years . . . I helped (Bill) with it and I saw . . . firsthand the love and the concern and the compassion that he had for people when we would go around and check on these people.
``I'm trying to carry on in his honor and his memory what he would normally be doing if he were here,'' she said. ``This is one way that Bill's love can stretch out even though he's not here.''
The club is annually inundated with the names of needy families that have been referred to them. So a committee interviews each family to make sure they are helping those with the most crucial needs.
Janice Sklar remembers two years ago when her husband came home and told her about the woman whose husband had just left her with several children and another due any day.
The woman had the baby Christmas Day, and Sklar found out and went to the Ambassadors Club and rounded up donations of toys and clothing in addition to the basket they already had supplied the family.
``There's a family this year that has really touched me deeply,'' she added. ``There are five small children and the husband was just killed. They have absolutely no insurance.''
The club checks each year on the families they have helped the year before to see how they are doing.
This year some of the previous families told the committee they didn't need help this year.
``They said they were in good shape and to give it to someone more needy than them.''
Sondra Hodges is hoping to teach 237 pre-schoolers of the joy that comes from giving.
The children, ages 3 to 5, are a part of the STOP Organization's Head Start program.
Hodges, a substance abuse prevention specialist with the Community Services Board, works with the children and their parents in a program called Project Jumpstart.
The program focuses on self esteem, anger control and parental involvement.
It was one of the parents who came up with the idea for this holiday project they call ``Learning Early To Give and Live Drug Free.''
The idea was to get the kids thinking beyond what Santa Claus was bringing them to what they could give the homeless and others in need.
``We wanted to teach the children early . . . to instill a sense of community,'' Hodges said. ``We told them, `Some people don't have a Santa. They don't have anything. You're going to be a Santa for them.' ''
Hodges wrote to motels and businesses asking for donations to the project, with no idea of what kind of response she would get.
They obviously liked the idea.
Hodges had to rent a storage unit to hold close to $5,000 worth of items ranging from furniture and blankets to hotel linens, soaps and shampoos.
``It shows that people still have the spirit of giving and it has restored my faith in the community - that we can come together and find a common bond to help one another,'' said Hodges.
The donors included the Double Tree Motel, the Lake Wright Quality Inn and the Hilton-Norfolk Airport, all in Norfolk; the Holiday Inn Portsmouth Waterfront; and the Revco at Hilltop in Virginia Beach.
So much was given that Hodges was able to give some of the items to mentally disabled members of the Opportunity House and she plans to offer some of the donations to other agencies and churches helping families in need.
The parents met twice last week to do an inventory on the items and to stuff more than 400 gift bags with the toiletries which the children will give to the homeless and other needy at the Mary Jane Bakery parking lot Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the children are excited and making costumes ranging from Santa Claus hats to Christmas decorations to wear the day they hand out the gift bags.
``I'm hoping that the children will learn from this point on the feeling that they get from giving.''
Last weekend, Roses in Churchland opened an hour early for members of the Churchland Kiwanis Club and their guests - 22 children who were allowed to go on a shopping spree.
The club sponsors the holiday shopping spree every year and this year got the names of children from the HER Shelter and PARC Place.
``The children are allowed to shop for themselves,'' explained Arie Korving, club president. ``We had a $1,300 budget, and we divided it evenly among the 22 children with the provision that they shop primarily for clothing.''
The children take their own purchases to the checkout counter, but instead of bagging them, Roses employees gift wrap them and club members deliver them close to Christmas.
``It was a very wonderful experience both for those of us who were able to present them with these presents . . . as much as for the people who actually received them,'' Korving said.
Every year, the owners and patrons of Tara Restaurant & Sports Lounge throw a party for 25 children whose names are given them by the Salvation Army.
Jack Bowers said his wife, Peggy, came up with the idea for the party and now it's a tradition for his regulars.
``Each of my customers takes a name and buys a toy and a piece of clothing for each (child),'' Bowers said. ``The ones that don't take a name usually contribute to buying the food.''
Not only do the kids get fed lunch and treats, but they also take home a food basket.
``The customers really get into it,'' he said. ``They come down with their wives and we just have a ball.
``They're probably the most well-behaved children I've ever seen,'' he said. ``I have a niece that is a schoolteacher and she plays games with them and reads them Christmas stories and gets them into the feel of it.
``Then we feed them, give them some desserts and then have Santa come in and start passing out the presents.''
This year's party, which included Santa arriving in a truck, was held Saturday.
For 42 years now, the members of Church Women United have been ensuring that Santa arrives for about 200 foster children throughout the city.
The children, newborns to teenagers, provide a wish list and members do their best to grant those wishes, whether it's a Barbie or a bicycle.
The presents are always brought gift-wrapped to a special dedication service, then delivered Christmas morning.
The Red Cross chapter at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital will sponsor its own Operation Santa on Thursday, presenting baked goods to patients at the hospital.
That's just a small part of the flurry of giving that goes on at the hospital.
There's also the ``adopt-a-family'' program that provides toys and clothing to Navy families who are having financial difficulties.
``The departments here at the hospital volunteer to assist a family,'' said Dan Gay, assistant public affairs officer. ``Currently we have more volunteers to help than we have families that have requested help.''
Then there's the hospital chaplain's ``holiday assistance'' program, which will provide 140 to 200 food baskets to eligible families.
But the hospital personnel extend a helping hand beyond Navy families in need. They are daily bringing in toys for a community toy chest.
While the hospital gives to the community it received a special gift from a nearby business this year.
The Super 8 Motel has offered free lodging on Christmas Eve for out-of-town family and friends of hospital patients.
The Merrymakers Club didn't forget the elderly.
Members of the club, formed during World War II to provide hostesses for USO Clubs, recently made their annual holiday trip to the William T. Hall Memorial Residential Center, dropping off baskets of food, including plenty of fresh fruit, and gifts of toiletries.
Virginia Power employees in the area marked 1 million hours of volunteer service by delivering truckloads of blankets and linens to shelters in the area, including Portsmouth's PARC Place for homeless families.
Volunteers in the company's Eastern Division, which includes Portsmouth, discovered a growing need for bed and bath linens.
So in September and October, large boxes were placed in each of the division's six offices. Close to 1,300 employees filled those boxes with everything from sleeping bags and comforters to towels and clothes.
``The majority of employees were involved in the project and they really did a good job of bringing it in,'' said Junius H. Williams, division manager and management advisor for the project.
Hotels donated to the project, including the Founders Inn, the Clarion Resort and Conference Center, Days Inn and Fairfield Inn by Marriott.
About 50 packing boxes of the donations were delivered to PARC Place.
``The timing during the holidays was perfect . . . just the atmosphere of giving and caring,'' Williams said. ``This was a way we could demonstrate we are a part of the community and we do care.''
In addition to four area shelters, Virginia Power volunteers also dropped off linens and blankets to the Holiday House of Portsmouth, a residential home for mentally retarded children.
``There's so many and it's so useful,'' said Lois Ziegler, executive director of Holiday House. ``We're just thrilled to death.''
Ziegler said clubs and churches, along with businesses, remember the children of Holiday House throughout the year. But Christmas is a special time and the children definitely know the holiday is here.
``Only two of them here can communicate and every time they see me now it's `Ho! Ho! Santa!' ''
For years now they have boarded the bus for Kmart, where employees give them a breakfast party and gifts of toys and clothes from Santa Claus.
For almost as long, they have gone to Norfolk for a party given by the Woman's Fleet Reserve No. 60 at Ocean View.
Today the children are going to Noble Street Baptist Church, Ziegler said, and they're ``going to have a real surprise.''
``I had asked for a treadmill and a stationary bike for some of our children who need to reduce and they're going to present it to us.''
Ziegler is constantly mailing out thank you notes to clubs, churches, businesses and individuals who send checks in the mail or drop by with gifts for the home or the children.
``It's almost like a daily basis that people are coming in to do for the children,'' she said.
``We've just had a wonderful Christmas and it's not even here.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by MARK MITCHELL
A Salvation Army volunteer rings a bell at Churchland Shopping
Center in a staff photo by Mark Mitchell. [color cover photo]
Janice Sklar asked that her husband's death be remembered with
donations to the Ambassadors Club's projects.
Sondra Hodges packs blankets and bath items for the needy and
homeless.
by CNB