Highlights From 4th Quarter WGNA Presentations 10/25/13 K.Agee

Our 4^th quarter WGNA meeting (10/24/13 at the Christian Church, Lawler @ Jupiter) featured speaker Jim Griffin, Director of The Good Samaritans of Garland. The Good Samaritans is a network of volunteers whose model comes from the Christian Bible’s Book of Luke (chapter 10, starting at verse 29) where there is sympathy and respect shown, especially for the working poor who have to deal with homelessness and hunger.

Jim described our local branch’s operation, how it typically serves 300-400 families per month, focusing primarily on the need for food in our area (handling about 35,000 pounds/month!) For practical reasons The Good Samaritans like to receive donations of non-perishable food from individuals, such as canned food, containers of pasta, rice, beans, etc. They have also made arrangements with businesses like Wal-Mart, as well as bakeries, etc, to receive & distribute perishable food (often including meat) on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday of each week. Besides their need for donors, The Samaritans also need lots of volunteers to help make this work. Jim stressed the varied need for skilled workers – for example, they need drivers to pick up & deliver the perishable items, people to research grants, write thank-you notes, sort donations, interview needy folks, and even do maintenance work on the rickety old house they work from.

If you would like to volunteer, or even learn more about their operation:

Ø Visit them in person at 214 N. 12^th Street in Garland. To get there, go south on Garland Road from Walnut until you cross the railroad tracks by the Grandy’s Restaurant. Go east on State Street a short distance until you get to 12^th Street.. their operation inside that neat-looking house.

Ø Go to their website at http://goodsamofgarland.org to get the latest news, and the full story of what they do and how to help.

Ø Give them a call at 972-276-2263 or send an email to: info@goodsamofgarland.org

Their normal hours are from 8:30am – 3:30pm, Monday thru Friday. Please note that these hours are dictated by the volunteers that are available at that time.

During normal proceedings, Pres. Rocha reported on our 10/1/13 National Night Out event at the Lottie Watson Park. A summary was also given of the WGNA Treasurer transfer from Dianna Diaz to Robert Vera (we now have $550.97 in reserve), our planned participation of the springtime Texas Trash Bash event, and Garland’s “Neighborhood Summit” seminar being held on 10/26/13.

During the open discussion period, complaints came up again that Code Compliance is doesn’t respond properly to issues raised that are sometimes even backed up with photographs of violations. It was suggested that getting the “ticket number” at the time of registering the complaint might help the success rate. There were also complaints about over-crowding, and parking violations in the area north and west of Groves Park (SE of the Jupiter/Buckingham intersection). President Rocha volunteered to take the complaints to the City, using our advantage of “strength in numbers”.

Ken Agee has once again volunteered to photograph our neighborhood’s best Christmas-time holiday decorations, so please keep an eye open for anything outstanding. Don’t hesitate to use WGNA’s telephone voicemail# 972-379-7497, or email mail4wgna@gmail.com