Volunteers bring Christmas spirit to Beard Brook homeless camp

There was plenty of Christmas spirit at Beard Brook Park on Tuesday morning as dozens of volunteers offered food, clothing and even haircuts to the roughly 500 homeless people camping in the Modesto park.

Anita Garcia was among the volunteers. The 60-year-old disabled Ceres resident has been a Beard Brook regular since Modesto opened the park to homeless campers in September.

She organizes a group of volunteers that feeds the homeless on Tuesdays with chili, soup and similar homemade fare. The volunteers also brought brownies, cookies and other sweets Christmas Day.

Garcia said she knows some of the homeless people camping at Beard Brook struggle with their own problems, but her Christian faith tells her that all of them deserve help and kindness.

“I’m God’s servant,” said Garcia, who is retired from Frito-Lay and had her own brief stint of homelessness. “A lot of the people at Beard Brook need to know that we do love them and care for them.”

Several homeless people told The Bee on Tuesday that while they are grateful to have a place to camp without being bothered by the police and for the homeless outreach workers and volunteers who help them, Beard Brook has become too crowded and has too much drama. That includes a recent stabbing, fistfights and couples screaming at each other.

Modesto and Stanislaus County plan to move the camp a couple of hundred yards to a spot in Tuolumne River Regional Park and bring in a nonprofit to operate the camp. Officials have said the new location will be better organized.

Garcia said each person has his own story about why he became homeless. While some struggle with addiction or untreated mental illness, others have been to prison or have lost everything because of illness and medical bills or the loss of a job.

“They are a blessing because they give from the heart,” said Brigett Moore, one of the Beard Brook residents, about Garcia and the other volunteers. “I’m used to people giving because they want something in return.”

Sooky Higareda organized a group of 10 family members and friends to give out sandwiches, chips, soda and other food to the homeless. They also brought wrapped Christmas gifts for the roughly 40 children living at Beard Brook. (Higareda said she got the number of children from camp organizers.)

“We all have a little to give to others,” she said, “all of us.”

She said she likes Beard Brook because unlike other parks where she has helped the homeless, she did not face questions or comments from onlookers that she was enabling the homeless.

“I always tell them, ‘It’s my money,’” she said about the onlookers.

Volunteer hairstylists and barbers with the nonprofit United Streets were in Beard Brook to provide haircuts Tuesday. United Streets volunteers also handed out coffee and pastries, as well as dog food for the homeless who have pets.

“I love it,” Beard Brook resident Alfredo Medina said as Kim Zim with the Tangled Tease Salon cut his hair. “I haven’t had a (professional) haircut in a long time.”

Medina, 63, said he became homeless several years ago after his life fell apart when he got divorced. But he said he has hope.

He said Social Security recently awarded him $1,100 monthly disability payments and he wants to land a part-time job through Social Security’s Ticket to Work program. Medina said he is tired of having too much free time.

Modesto opened Beard Brook, which is in an industrial area south of Yosemite Boulevard, to homeless campers Sept. 18 after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Sept. 4 that prosecuting people for sleeping on public property because there are not enough shelter beds or other alternatives amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.