Community Corner
A Santa for Everyone at a Special Holiday Party
Santa made a stop Saturday at the holiday party for Parents Helping Parents, an organization that supports families with special needs children.
Thanks to generous sponsors and a taskforce of volunteers, Christmas came a little early for hundreds of special needs kids and their parents on Saturday.
Parents Helping Parents (PHP), a San Jose resource center for families with special needs children, held its annual holiday open house on Saturday. Each year the organization invites around 2,000 people to the party, which is a chance for kids to pick up some goodies—books in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese donated by Share Literacy in Los Altos, stuffed animals from a local credit union, a photo frame to decorate and snacks—and for parents to mingle.
This year featured an animal petting zoo put on by another Los Altos-based organization called Animal Assisted Happiness, which brings goats, chickens, guinea pigs, and ponies to events like these around the Bay Area.
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But the highlight of the event was a photo-op with Santa, something seemingly simple which can be impossible for special needs children.
Milpitas resident and PHP board member said some families have "a really hard time doing the traditional mall Santa." Her own son, who is 19 and autistic, loves the tradition but would be unable to take a photo with Santa at the mall, she said.
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PHP provides a variety of resources for special needs children and their families, including workshops and therapy sessions around the Bay Area. PHP provides support for children with a wide range of disabilities, including dyslexia, ADHD, cerebral palsy and Down syndrome. They also have a vast library for kids and parents at the center with books in several languages.
Board member Dianah Marr, a Cupertino native who was a teacher there for several years, found PHP after struggling to help her son with autism.
"I was really frustrated with my parenting because with my teaching background I felt like I should know what to do," she said, adding that she began to blame herself for being unable to help her son.
Marr then discovered parenting strategies and information about educational rights at PHP that proved invaluable. "They really helped our whole family come out from a state of confusion," she said.
