Page 1 - PARLIER POST 12-20-17 E-Edition

VOL. 34 NO. 51, PARLIER (FRESNO COUNTY) 93648 1 SECTION, 8 PAGES WEDNESDAY, December 20, 2017
PHS student 'pays it forward'
Photo Contributed
Isabelle "Belle" Gonzales (second from left) is pictured at the Selma Bandits Youth Football and Cheer toy drive on Dec. 9. The program donated all toys raised to Gonzales' cause.
PUSD holds organizational meeting
Staff Report
The Parlier Unified School District Board of Trustees held its annual organizational meeting on Dec. 12, where members selected J.D. Garza to continue to serve as president of the board.
Garza will represent the district on the executive board for the Fresno County Trustee Association.
Carlos Lopez was appointed as the new vice president — a position formerly held by trustee Jackie Garcia-Escoto.
Elizabeth Tienda was appointed as board clerk.
Tienda was selected as voting representative to the Fresno County Committee on School District Organization.
Edgar Pelayo was selected to serve as the board representative to the Valley Regional Occupational Program Board.
Superintendent Jaime Robles will be secretary to the board.
Meetings will continue to be held twice a month — the second and fourth Thursday of the month with a regular session time of 6 p.m. at the Parlier Junior High School cafeteria.
Residents unite to help homeless
By Karina Vargas
parlierpost@midvalleypublishing.com
Nearly 100 foster children and youth at a Fresno nonprofit organization will have a merrier Christmas this year.
Fifteen-year-old Isabelle “Belle” Gonzales, a sophomore student at Parlier High School (PHS), partnered with Transitions Children’s Services – an organization dedicated to the safety, permanence and well-being of children in foster care – so foster children and youth receive a gift on Christmas Day.
Gonzales’ mission started four years ago when her softball equipment was stolen before a softball tournament.
That day, she lost all her equipment – worth about $1,500 – and was unable to play.
Her mom, Margaret Cepeda,
who worked doing referrals at a private doctor’s office at the time, shared the incident with her coworkers.
“I went back to work and let my coworkers know what had happened and they let the doctor know,” Cepeda recalls. “She found out what happened to Belle and she called me into the office one day and she gave me a Dick’s Sporting Goods gift card.”
All physician Gaylene Soloniuk-Tays asked was for Gonzales to “pay it forward.”
Gonzales saw the perfect time for this when Christmas time came around.
“My mom asked me ‘what do you want?’ and I said, ‘I don’t want anything, I just want to get other kids something,’” Gonzales said.
Cepeda got in touch with a friend who worked for a Child Protective Services (CPS) agency, who then put her in contact with Brian Van
Photo Contributed
Isabelle "Belle" Gonzales is pic- tured with Transitions Children's Services CEO Brian Van Anne.
Anne, Transitions Children’s Services CEO.
The organization then sent Gonzales several ornaments
PAY IT FORWARD. See Page 8
Keeping families warm
Hundreds of coats were handed out to Parlier residents on Dec. 9 as part of Al- varado Group's winter coat giveaway. Other local organizations participated in the event.
ABOVE: Pictured are members of Al- varado Group and other local organiza- tions who participated in the weekend event to keep Parlier residents warm during the holidays.
LEFT: The Dec. 9 coat giveaway handed out hundreds of coats to local residents, including many children.
Photos Contributed
By Karina Vargas
parlierpost@midvalleypublishing.com
A group of Parlier residents have come together to help the homeless during the cold weather.
During the Dec. 6 council meeting, Police Chief Jose Garza announced that due to complaints from residents, 13 homeless encampments were served with no trespassing orders.
That became an issue for resident Leticia Trujillo, who along with a group of friends and with donations from local businesses, decided to organize an early Christmas dinner for the homeless.
During the Dec. 14 special council meeting, Trujillo shared her own testimony to council members and said her main wish is for the city to open the Civic Center for these people to sleep in during the cold nights.
"These people don't have ahomeoraplacetogo. Maybe they need help from the community — from us,"
she addressed the council in Spanish. "We need to do something because it is not just one, or two of them. It's many of them."
Trujillo said these people are asking for blankets, shoes, socks, jackets and anything else to keep warm during the night, but instead they were kicked out from their encampments.
"We know that it's a place where they should not live, but also as a community, we have the right and duty to help them," she said.
Trujillo also feels a greater need to help the homeless in town because she was once homeless herself.
When she first arrived to United States, she had nowhere to go so she and her family lived in an abandoned ranch in Reedley for a while.
Homeless individuals in the community also were present at the meeting asking for council to consider helping them with a shelter.
Abel Resendez, who has been a resident of Parlier since 1969,
became homeless after a fire accident.
"I got three degree burns in my hands," he said. "They did plastic surgery on my upper lip. When they released me, I had nowhere to go."
Resendez had been living in an encampment behind a packing house in town for nearly three months when he received a notice that he had to leave.
"That was the only place that I was able to call home," he said. "What did we do to deserve this? We clean up the area. We don't allow anybody that's not supposed to be there to be there. We try to help out the owner of the packing house as much as we can."
"I'm just asking, if you can find it in your heart, to find somewhere else for us to go," Resendez said.
Community members Jose Moreira, Rosa Mora and Lena Goerzen also asked the council to consider opening up a place for the homeless to sleep in,
HOMELESS...See Page 8
Photo Contributed
A group of Parlier residents, with the help of local businesses, are helping to keep the home- less warm during the holidays.
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