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Tag: Ruth Fox

  • Heights Church, residents work together to improve Mariposa Elementary

    Al and Ruth Fox stand in front of Mariposa Elementary school. // S. Williams

    By Sara Beth Williams–
    A Citrus Heights neighborhood association and a local church have partnered together to help bring a new community resource room to Mariposa Elementary.

    Ruth Fox, president and REACH representative of Sunrise Ranch Neighborhood Area 6, has worked closely with Mariposa Elementary. When the school’s principal approached Ruth and her husband, Al Fox, about the idea of converting an existing classroom space into a community resource room for local parents to use, Ruth and Al took the idea to Craig Sweeney, lead pastor of Heights Church.

    “It sounded like a great opportunity,” Sweeney said.

    In an interview with The Sentinel, Fox said her research had found that community rooms are a great opportunity for disadvantaged parents to build positive relationships with school staff and other community members.

    Fox, along with the school’s principal, anticipate utilizing the room as a place where parents can use a computer to apply for jobs, communicate with their child’s teacher, or gather information for personal needs. Both want the room to be a neutral location where the principal, teachers and other staff can meet with parents whose students are in special education, parents of ESL students, or with social services members who work with San Juan Unified children and families.

    “It goes back to helping the child, and that’s where our heart is,” Fox said, noting that a lot of parents don’t have internet access satisfactory enough to help themselves or their child.

    The school’s principal could not be reached for comment before press time.

    Al Fox said Heights Church has provided an overall budget of $4,000 to spend on the project. He, along with other volunteers from the church, helped paint the room. Many community members have donated items like furniture and children’s toys, bringing down the overall cost.

    Ruth Fox said she wanted the room to have a “warm atmosphere” and designed the layout to include a small children’s play area, a seating area with sofas for parents and other staff members to meet, and a small food closet. She has also created binders listing various social service resources that families can access and utilize.

    The school district has provided a laser printer and four computers to be used in the room.

    “Our heart as a church is that if schools have this need, then we’d like to help,” Heights Church Outreach Director Sam Morrow said. The church has also helped in the past with distributing headsets to students during the pandemic, providing backpacks with school supplies and feeding the homeless.

    “If you’re a church in the community and you left, would the community even notice?” Sweeney said. “I wanted our community to say, we noticed the void.”

    The community resource room is expected to be complete and ready to use in a few weeks. Mariposa Elementary is also planning to hire someone to come in two hours a day to assist parents who are using the room’s resources.

    Related: This new nonprofit is helping in-need students get shoes in Citrus Heights

  • Citrus Heights nonprofit seeking donations to provide students with shoes

    Mariposa Elementary School Principal Leslee Cottrell, left, Linda Fischer, Jackie Rittenhouse and Ruth Fox hold shoes and socks in the school’s shoe closet. // Thomas Sullivan

    By Rylie Friesen–
    Soles for Young Souls, a local nonprofit formed in 2019, is actively seeking donations to ensure shoes are provided for students in need at Mariposa Avenue Elementary in Citrus Heights.

    Linda Fischer, president of the nonprofit’s Board of Directors, said the shoe closet is currently located in the school’s office at 7940 Mariposa Ave., where donations can be dropped off during school hours, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. She said donations of new shoes and socks are accepted, as well as cash, checks, and gift cards, in order to purchase more items. Children can also pick up shoes from the closet.

    “From toddler sizes to adult sizes, there are 44 different sizes,” Fischer said. “Kids outgrow or wear out their shoes several times a year, so it’s an ongoing need.”

    Mariposa Avenue Elementary serves students in preschool through fifth grade, and over 80 percent of its students have been signed up for government aid and even more qualify, according to Fischer. She said many of the students were seen wearing too-tight or worn-out shoes and it appeared likely that their families couldn’t afford new ones.

    “Life isn’t fair and we know that, but if we can make it more fair, then I think we should try,” she said.

    Related: San Juan Unified to expand to 4 days of in-person learning

    Fischer, a Citrus Heights native who currently works at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, helped found the “Soles for Young Souls” organization after discovering the need for shoes from the school’s principal, Leslee Cottrell.

    Fischer said students were asked to take a shoe survey that helped teachers to see which students were in need of shoes. It asked if the child’s shoes were too tight, too large, falling apart, or too stinky, for example. From these answers Fischer said it becomes known who needs a new pair of shoes.

    An upcoming distribution is planned for April 19, and Fischer hopes to have distributions 2-3 times a year: before school starts, in the middle of the year, and towards the end of the year to have shoes in the summer.

    School closures due to COVID-19 hampered some of the nonprofit’s plans, with Fischer calling it “devastating.”

    “With the kids not being in school meant we couldn’t do school distributions,” she said.

    However, in December, in conjunction with the school cafeteria handing out food, a shoe distribution was advertised and Fischer said 85 pairs of shoes were handed out.

    The Soles for Young Souls shoe closet received its official nonprofit status in March 2019, with Fischer serving as president and Jackie Rittenhouse and Ruth Fox serving alongside her.

    The organization says all donations go entirely to purchasing new shoes and socks; and none of it is used for printing, shelving, government filing fees, or supplies.

    For more on how this local nonprofit started, see The Sentinel’s prior story: This new nonprofit is helping in-need students get shoes in Citrus Heights

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  • This new nonprofit is helping in-need students get shoes in Citrus Heights

    • Mariposa Elementary School Principal Leslee Cottrell, left, Linda Fischer, Jackie Rittenhouse and Ruth Fox hold shoes and socks in the school’s shoe closet. // Thomas Sullivan

    By Thomas J. Sullivan–
    Students at Mariposa Elementary School in Citrus Heights are now benefiting from a special “Soles for Young Souls” shoe closet, thanks to the work of Linda (Schram) Fischer and the generosity of several book club members of San Juan High School Class of 1966.

    School Principal Leslee Cottrell has set aside the needed shelf space for the shoe closet in the front office, and donations that come in are quickly put on the shelves. Students at the school simply need to ask at the front office and a new pair of boys’ or girls’ shoes and socks will soon be theirs. Parents of Mariposa Elementary students can also approach school office staff during regular hours to request to visit the closet on their children’s behalf.

    Mariposa Elementary serves almost 400 students in preschool through fifth grade, and about 83 percent of its students qualify as low socioeconomic status, according to Cottrell. The student population includes 10 different languages which are Spanish, Dari, Ukrainian, Russian, Arabic, Romanian, Tagalog, Vietnamese and American Sign Language.

    The “Soles for Young Souls” shoe closet received its official nonprofit status last month, with Fischer serving as its president, Jackie (Hull) Rittenhouse serving as vice-president/secretary and Ruth Fox as treasurer.

    Fischer and Rittenhouse serve together on the Sunrise Ranch Neighborhood Association board and Fox’s husband formerly served on the Citrus Heights City Council.

    Cottrell told The Sentinel many of her students were seen wearing too-tight or worn-out shoes and it appeared likely that their families couldn’t afford new ones.

    “They often qualify for CalWorks and CalFresh, and just don’t have enough left in the family budget to purchase their children’s shoes,” Cottrell said.

    On Fischer’s behalf, she wrote a letter of introduction to community members to introduce Mariposa Elementary’s need for flexible donations in order to provide new shoes in a variety of child and adult sizes to meet the needs of her students.

    “Many of our teachers have directly referred their students to our office shoe closet when they’ve seen the poor condition of the footwear that their students are wearing, Cottrell said. “Some of our students come to school wearing sandals in the winter months.”

    “Some younger children have already grown through smaller sizes and now require an adult-sized shoe,” Cottrell said. “Children grow so quickly and so often that their shoes are often too small, even after a few short months.”

    How it began

    “It broke my heart that there was such a need,” said Fischer, who attended Mariposa Elementary School as a young girl. When she became aware of the need for new children’s shoes at the school, Fischer asked the fellow members of San Juan High School alumni if they could help.

    Fisher said the shoe closet stepped off at the beginning of the school year with an initial inventory of 54 pairs of shoes donated by the San Juan High School ‘66rs Book Club. More than 300 students have since been helped with new shoes and socks through the “Soles for Young Souls” program at Mariposa since the shoe closet started last fall. That’s more than half the total student population of Mariposa Elementary School.

    “I know from my own experience as a single parent raising two sons on my own how hard it was to buy shoes for them,” Fischer said.

    Fair Oaks attorney Brian E. Sweeney helped contribute his pro bono time to help the group incorporate with the State of California as a 501(C)3 nonprofit. Now that the group is a registered nonprofit, Fischer is hopeful the shoe closet effort will better be able to solicit donations and expand to reach many more students in the 40,000-plus San Juan Unified School District.

    Those interested in donating a pair of boys or girls shoes are asked to check with the front office at Mariposa Elementary School for which sizes are needed most.

    “Gift cards towards the purchase of new children’s shoes are also welcome,” Fischer said. She’s saddened that Payless Shoe Source is closing both of its stores in Citrus Heights, since their store managers were helpful in offering children’s shoes at a corporate discount.

    Donations of children’s shoes of all sizes can be dropped off at the school at 7940 Mariposa Ave. Linda Fischer can also be reached at (916) 765-7476.

    *This story has been updated to include a correction on Linda Fischer’s phone number.