The Family Giving Tree The Family Giving Tree in the Media

Palo Alto's Jennifer Cullenbine is sending out 28,500 Christmas cards this year.

Instead of holiday greetings, the cards will be printed with the name of a needy individual and a gift request.

The cards won't go through the mail, but will be hung like ornaments on the branches of 136 Christmas trees in businesses throughout the Bay Area.

Employees of customers may pick a card off the tree, buy the designated gift and take it back to the participating business. Then the presents are distributed to the 40 local social service groups which give them to the appropriate individual, of which 75 percent are children.

It's the "Family Giving Tree," a program Cullenbine began in 1990 as part of a master's degree program in business and which has grown into a non-profit corporation under her direction.

The trees went up on Friday and will be up through Dec.16.

Cullenbine hopes to distribute 40,000 presents this year - a whopping increase from the 4,020 she distributed the first year and the 10,000 last year.

The difference this year is that Wells Fargo Bank pledged to install a "Family Giving Tree" in each of 97 bank branches from Marin through Sunnyvale. Last year, only 18 of its bank branches put up Family Giving Trees.

Cullenbine holds an MBA but works temp jobs most of the year because "I could never with a good conscience take a full-time job and quit" as she must to devote herself to the Family Giving Tree beginning in October.

"My father tells stories about me when I was 4, bringing home kids from school who didn't have friends - shy kids, loners. I always wanted to make things right with everybody," Cullenbine said.

Other companies installing the trees are Hewlett-Packard Co., Sun Microsystems Inc., National Semiconductor Corp. and smaller companies such as Togo's eateries.

Among the local agencies benifiting from the program are the Catholic Worker House, Redwood Family House and Day Break Shelter in Redwood City; East Palo Alto Teen Home Inc., Ecumenical Hunger Program and Thea Bowman House in East Palo Alto; Haven Family House in Menlo Park; and St. Vincent de Paul and the Urban Ministry in Palo Alto.

Christmas comes but once a year for most. For Jennifer Cullenbine, it never stops.

As the founder and director of Santa Clara's Family Giving Tree, the 28-year old Cullenbine spends each year planning and plotting for the great culmination of Christmas, when she distributes thousands of donated gifts to Bay Area seniors, children and the mentally ill.

The year-long process begins when local social workers create lists of recipients and desired gifts (price limit is $30). Volunteers at the Family Giving Tree then enter the lists into the computer, print them on colored cards and hang them on trees in participating businesses. Employees and customers select cards, buy and wrap gifts and return them to the tree. Cullenbine and crew sort and distribute the gifts, striving to get one practical and one fun present to each person.

"Seniors are the hardest bunch to crack," said Cullenbine. "They are the most unselfish group of people. 99 percent of the time they say they want nothing for themselves. But usually the ones who won't take anything for themselves will take something for the home."

Big requests from seniors include pillows, blankets, slippers, bathrobes, and gift certificates to Target. Cullenbine said that the alarming number of grandparents raising grandchildren in East Palo Alto prompted her to include them in her outreach.

"We wanted to take care of the elderly who are buying cat food and having it for lunch," said Cullenbine. "They're a heck of a lot more needy than the kids sometimes - at least the kids get a meal at school.

"A lot of (the grandparents) are getting government assistance," she added, "but they get less than foster parents. It's really sad."

Cullenbine began her dedication to service at age seven, inspired by a grandmother who worked with crippled children and a lawyer grandfather who helped the poor. She briefly considered a career in social work, but found herself too tender-hearted. She still avoids watching or reading the news because it depresses her.

Instead, she sought her MBA, and spawned the Family Giving Tree in 1990 for a class called "Creativity in Management."

"Our final exam was to go out and do something that gives value to someone's life," she explained. "I suggested this project, but the class said it would be too much work. So I did it with one other student."

That first year, Cullenbine distributed 4,200 presents, wrote her thesis, and got pneumonia. Upon recovery, she decided to take a shot at keeping the organization afloat. And she has, on a less-than-shoe-string budget. Wells Fargo, Bank donates a cavernous office space and warehouse, Xerox prints flyers, and hundreds of volunteers give their time, including a dedicated group from the Palo Alto Senior Center. This year she hopes to set up 135 trees and hand out 35,000 presents.

Cullenbine herself is a full-time volunteer, making ends meet through temp work and living at home. From August through September she works 16 hours a day, seven days a week, eating all her meals in the warehouse and sometimes curling up there to sleep.

"Can you imagine a better job?" she bubbled. "This is Jennifer's ideal job. If I can make a small income at it I'll do it for the rest of my life."

Five Years ago, when Jennifer Cullenbine took on her master's level class project as San Jose State University, she had no idea that very project would become her full-time career. By applying her administrative and networking skills to the needs of the community, the 29-year-old entrepreneur helps to bring Christmas into the homes of thousands of Bay Area families who wouldn't otherwise have one.

Cullenbin is executive director of the Giving Tree Council, a program which fulfills the Christmas wishes of needy children by soliciting donations from the community. The program began as a campus-wide venture, but quickly spread throughout Silicon Valley.

The original goal of the project was to provide Christmas presents to 300 underprivileged children, but public response was so generous that they ended up helping 4,000 children. The program now reaches about 35,000 needy kids each holiday season.

"The idea wasn't an original one. We just took the idea of providing for more unfortunate families and adapted it to corporations," Cullenbine explained.

More than 250 companies in the Bay Area support the Giving Tree program by placing "wish cards" provided by Cullenbine's organization on their Christmas trees. Employees or visitors may take as many cards as they like. "We usually start out by giving about 50 wish cards to a company, but they go fast and they'll call and ask for more," Cullenbin said. "We've found that people don't take just one card, they take eight or nine."

For Cullenbine, who grew up in East Palo Alto in a low-income household, the concept of charity is one that is near and dear to her heart. "I was one of the first children to apply for the free lunch program at Palo Alto High School," Cullenbine recalls. "We were helped by the Palo Alto Jaycees and the Elks Club. One year they took my brother shopping to buy Christmas presents for our family."

These days, Cullenbine is a continuing link in the giving chain. Along with a team of 450 volunteers, she coordinates with 70 different non-profit agencies to compile a database of names, ages and wishes of underprivileged children in the Bay Area. Wish cards are then made and sent out to companies to put on the Giving Trees. When the gifts start coming in, it's time to hustle.

In a 66,000 square foot warehouse in Sunnyvale donated by Wells Fargo, rooms begin filling with packages. Canvas bins by the door are piled high with gifts. When those get full they are moved to an auxiliary room where they are sorted by agency and moved to separate storage rooms.

Duplicate donations go into a separate storage where they are later matched with wishes that didn't come in. Cash donations also help to provide gifts for kids whose wish cards weren't picked.

A week before Christmas Eve, volunteers sort packages, match gifts to wishes, wrap those that didn't come wrapped, and deliver them to the appropriate agencies, who then deliver the gifts to the children.

"It's a real thrill to go to the warehouse and see things happening," said Jackie Elardo, who runs the Giving Tree program at San Jose State, a spin- off of Cullenbine's program. "When the gifts are coming in and being sorted, it's awesome," she said.

"It's been something that has gained momentum," she said. "We stay in it because there is an interest." Elardo said one faculty member that she knows of takes about 25 cards each year and distributes them among family members. This year Elardo got permission to place a tree in the faculty dining room, where she hopes it will gain even more exposure.

After Christmas, Cullenbine says she hibernates. "I hide in my room and don't talk to anybody," she said. "I literally read a book a day for a month." But once she is recuperated, Cullenbine is back at it again, helping to find food, clothing and shelter for homeless families.

When a couple of hotels went out of business, Cullenbine was able to obtain 200 beds for homeless shelters and poor families who wouldn't otherwise have anything to sleep on. A few weeks ago, Cullenbine took a group of 20 underprivileged kids to Valley Fair Shopping Center, where Lens Crafters donated eye exams and glasses.

But Cullenbine's pet project is working with "at-risk" teen-age girls, helping them stay in school, through tutoring, counseling and mentoring. "Not long ago, I was asked to give a presentation to a group of high school girls called, 'An Income of Her Own.' That was the first time I'd ever thought of myself as an entrepreneur. I was actually taking things I learned in the (master's in business administration) program and applying then to running a business," she said.

Someday, Cullenbine hopes to have an income of her own as well - "I've made the Giving Tree my career, and I haven't been paid yet," she said - but for the time being, she lives at home with her family and says she leads a "modest lifestyle." She is able to support herself through an insurance settlement from a back injury.

Her next undertaking will be to find a new home for the Giving Tree Council. In January Wells Fargo plans to sell the space they've been donating, so Cullenbine is on the lookout for another vacant building. They need 2,000 square feet of office space year-round and a warehouse for at least two weeks at Christmas time.

"The program is a terrific idea. I think it's wonderful that someone like Jennifer, with her talent and know-how, was able to take what she learned in college and apply it to real life, to an area where there's a real need," Elardo said.

With all the excitement of gift-giving that defines the holiday season, wouldn't it be nice to do something special for those who are less fortunate?

Under the care of "Tree Director" Carla Lucarotti, Foreign Languages Department, the Family Giving Tree program is once again underway. This is a special program that helps underprivileged children receive a gift for Christmas. The Giving Tree differs from other drives in that the children select what gifts they want to recieve so that they truly will be happy with their gift.

Many Leland students and organizations have participated in this program in the past. As Mrs. Lucarotti says, "As soon as the teddy bear goes on my door, it's time to get cracking!" Already, such organizations as Associated Student Body and California Scholarship Federation have begun to participate in the drive.

This year, Mrs. Lucarotti hopes to break Leland's previous record and donate over 500 gifts. Sophomore Ephraim Joseph is excited about the challenge. "I really think we can do it. If every two or three people pitch in to buy a gift, that's 600 right there!"

Senior Chinar Mithani has already bought a gift for a needy child and is anxious about buying another. "This is one thing that I look forward to whenever December rolls around. It really makes you feel good when you can do something positive for others."

Those interested in purchasing a gift for the Family Giving Tree should contact Mrs. Lucarotti in Room E-8.