In President Herbert Hoover’s parlance of prosperity, the phrase was, “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.” Sonoma Realtor Bill Dardon would be happy with just some kind of food in everyone’s oven over the holidays.
Seventeen years ago, Dardon launched his crusade to make that happen in the Sonoma Valley. His goal is to collect enough money to put a gift card equivalent to the purchase price of at least a modest turkey in all the baskets that F.I.S.H. (Friends in Sonoma Helping) distributes in the days leading up to Christmas.
This year, the distribution date is Saturday, Dec. 20, at the Hanna Boys Center, so time is of the essence.
“The seed for this campaign started in 1991,” said Dardon. It sprang from a turkey giveaway conducted in conjunction with open houses. People would come and put a ticket in a barrel and the winner would get a turkey, which they could take home and cook or simply give to someone more needy.
Dardon has fine-tuned the program over the years. “Every November, I work in conjunction with Safeway (in the early years it was with the old Lucky’s). I’d take in donations of $5,” which at the time would buy a 14-to-16-pound turkey. “A turkey that size can feed a family of four or more,” Dardon said.
He would give the “turkey tickets” to FISH for distribution; the people who received baskets could take the ticket to the store to “buy” a turkey.
“In the past, I would make up the tickets myself,” he said. “Then one year, the store told me, ‘Bill we have no more room in our freezers for so many turkeys.’”
So now, instead of turkey tickets, recipients get a simple gift card, redeemable at Safeway for the food of their choice.
Dardon, who has worked in real estate for 35 years and has been on the Plaza for 22 years, came to his charity work naturally. “My father supported an orphanage and on Christmas Eve, he would take treats to inmates in jail. He gave me good insight on giving,” said Dardon, who started the turkey program in his father’s honor after his death.
“One of the important parts is the gift of giving for the joy of if. If you’ve never been hungry – and I have been – you don’t know what it’s like.”
After emigrating to the U.S. from Guatemala in 1954, Dardon lived with his family in the San Francisco’s Mission District in a $14-a-month apartment. None of them even spoke English at that point, but they all became American citizens, something of which Dardon is extremely proud.
“This country is a place where you can make anything you want happen,” Dardon said. “The joy of Christmas is not the glitter or the gifts, but the giving of yourself to mankind. And it is my absolute pleasure to do it.”
Dardon remembers the eight years of winter evenings he spent standing on the Plaza in 30-degree weather collecting food and the time he spent as chairman of the canned food tree. “People took turns asking store customers to buy an extra can of food to build a tree out of cans. We’d stand there for an hour at a time, asking for food or cash,” he said.
The current system is much simpler, and far less uncomfortable. Everyone is encouraged to donate any amount of cash or check (made out to Safeway). Dardon puts the donations in an old coffee can until he has enough to start purchasing gift cards from Safeway. Donors can mail contributions to the Real Estate Company, Attention: Bill Dardon, 34 W. Spain St., Sonoma 95476. All donations need to arrive by Friday, Dec. 19. If there’s no time to mail a check, you can drop money off anytime through Friday at the office, which is on the north side of the Plaza.
“My record is putting tickets in 1,500 baskets, sometimes two in one basket – that’s at the discretion of FISH,” he said. “Last year, it was probably only about 700. This year, food banks are running low. I stood up at a real estate breakfast this morning and asked for donations and I also appeal to church groups.
“What matters is I am one guy trying to make a difference in people’s lives with these baskets.”
