This article was on the front page of the News Review on Friday May 15, 2009. It's pretty cool and a great experience for the kids. It has opened up other doors of service for us. Jonah wants to help the soldiers. We are currently looking for one to write and support. It was great all the way around. For Jonah's birthday this year he says that he wants to send medical supplies to the war!
Boy's birthday bash helps feed the hungry
Kathy Korengel
At his recent birthday party Calvin Davis, 6, second from right top row, had party guests bring food for the homeless in lieu of gifts. The kids got back together at Calvin’s home on Thursday. In front are, from left, Levi LeMert, 8, Seth Davis, 1, and Jonah Hanson, 6. In the back, are, left, Remington LeMert, 3, Landon Davis, 3, Calvin Davis, 6, and Sailie LeMert, 5.
ROBIN LOZNAK/The News-Review
Calvin Davis and his birthday party guests deliver their food donations to Umpqua Community Action Network.
Courtesy photo
Calvin Davis, 6, recently held a birthday party that ended up being a gift to the area’s homeless.“Calvin is just really compassionate about other people,” explained his mother, Regina Davis, at their Roseburg home on Thursday. “He really notices when other people don’t have things.”He’s also curious. And he started asking questions when he saw homeless people on the street. Davis decided she wanted to build on those traits by throwing a unique birthday party for him, one where he gave instead of received. “Something I really wanted to instill in my kids was a desire to serve and help other people,” she said.She looked online for ideas, but found none. Then she remembered getting mail from the Umpqua Community Action Network about how the social service agency’s Food Bank was struggling to keep up with the rising demand for emergency food.So Davis decided to ask Calvin’s guests to bring food and personal hygiene items for UCAN, rather than presents, to his party on April 9.She called her friends, Mandy Hansen and Lura LeMert, the day before his party to invite their four children. And she told them her plan for presents.“I think it’s great,” Hansen said. “It’s really hard to teach kids service. I only have one (kid). It’s really hard to teach compassion. You learn things with siblings that with an only child you don’t learn.”To get ready for the party, Davis got bags for the kids to color, and in which to deliver the food. She put together clues for a treasure hunt in which the kids would hunt for the food at the party. And she made plans for a relay to give the kids a fun way to put the food in bags.After the party, “we had two very full trunkloads of bags of stuff,” LeMert remembers of the ride to UCAN.Once at UCAN, the kids got a tour. They saw the showers and laundry facilities UCAN provides for the homeless. They talked to an employee who advocates for the homeless. They even learned about some of the other things UCAN does, such as teaching people how to save energy.They also did a few traditional birthday things. Employees sang “Happy Birthday” to Calvin in every department they passed through. A “Happy Birthday” banner welcomed him in one department.“A 6-year-old birthday party, that they’re having a party that does social service, it is just great,” said Nancy Southerland, the volunteer coordinator at UCAN who arranged the group’s visit. “It just touched my heart,” she said, “in fact of all of us here. ... Some people were teary-eyed.”Asked his thoughts on his birthday bash, Calvin said the party was “good, because I was helping others.” The UCAN tour was “good” too, because he learned “what kind of food you could bring there ... (and) how the people work.”Hansen’s son, Jonah, 6, said the party was “cool ... because we got to help people.” He remembered getting to see a meeting room at UCAN and what temperature to set your fridge at for optimum energy efficiency.LeMert’s son, Levi, 8, remembers how “cheerful and happy” everyone was at UCAN. He learned “it’s nice to give and to be cheerful and to be happy and it’s good to help other people.”There’s one more thing he learned. “It’s like a present to kind of give. It’s kind of a present for you.”
