CCS breakfast honors advocates, raises funds

Friday, Apr. 24, 2015

OGDEN — It was a morning of tears as well as good cheer: The Dream Builder’s Breakfast on April 15 saw honorees cry as they received recognition and spoke from their heart about what serving Catholic Community Services of Northern Utah has meant to them.

Yvonne Coiner, the 2015 Community Advocate, has spent 23 years as a community advocate in the Ogden/Weber area. She began as a volunteer at CCS and later worked for the organization. Coiner recently retired from the United Way of Northern Utah; previously she was the executive director of the St. Benedict’s Foundation, which gave yearly grants to CCS Northern Utah. She also worked for Ogden-Weber Applied Technology College’s youth program and served on various community boards.

“There are angels that are placed here on earth, angels who are sent to guide us, heal us, encourage us and love us. Yvonne Coiner is one such angel,” said Marcie Valdez, director of CCS Northern Utah, before presenting the award.

One of CCS Northern Utah’s original staff members, Coiner “worked passionately in those early days of our food program to design, develop and coordinate food assistance in Ogden,” Valdez said, adding that “for so many of us, Yvonne has been a tremendous friend and mentor, and there is no greater advocate for the needy.”

Benedictine Sister Stephanie Mongeon added her praise, saying that as executive director of the St. Benedict’s Foundation, Coiner “was able to see a vision for our foundation that was unbelievable. She has this creative courage. There is nothing that will stop her. … When I look at Yvonne, I see a woman of deep faith, I see a woman who sees Christ in everyone.” 

Coiner blinked back tears as she received her award. During her comments, she said, “I do want to thank every single person I met, or who I helped, or who helped me ... because you have made me who I am.” 

The breakfast paid special tribute to the monks at Huntsville’s Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity, which regularly contributes to CCS.

None of the monks, who are hermits, attended the breakfast. 

“They are busy doing holy things,” said KUTV reporter Rod Decker, who served as Master of Ceremonies for the event.  

However, the video tribute to the monks included interviews with the monastery’s residents in which they gave advice such as “You have to try to accept that God knows what we need more than we do ourselves,” “Find God in everyday life,” and “to find your true self, your deep heart, that place where God and you live together – to me that is most important thing.”

The monastery, which was founded in 1947, likely will close in the near future because no new men have entered. Although no date has yet been set for the monks to leave, when they do, “they will leave us poorer,” Decker said.

Honored as Philanthropist of the Year was David James, “a man with a vision, a vision that no child should be faced with hunger,” Valdez said.

James, a sportscaster for KUTV, launched a statewide telethon for the SouperBowl of Caring in 2013 to raise donations for food pantries such as CCS Northern Utah’s Joyce Hansen Hall food bank. Last year, he put CCS Northern Utah in contact with the Arby’s Foundation, which wanted to donate to a program to alleviate children’s hunger. The result was the creation of CCS’ Bridging the Gap program, which gives needy children two bags of groceries on Fridays so they will have food over the weekend, when school meals aren’t available.

“Since June of last year we have provided 10,520 children with 97,000 meals” through the Bridging the Gap program, Valdez said, “and we are proud to say that we have a strong and sustainable childhood hunger-relief program in Weber County. But it would not have happened without David James. He is an example of the difference one committed, passionate visionary can make.”

Also honored at the breakfast were Ogden-Weber Applied Technology College’s YouthBuild program. Many students in the program volunteer at CCS; they received the Youth Group award.

Walmart, which has contributed to CCS in many ways, was recognized as the Community Partner.

Over past five years, grants from Walmart allowed CCS to more than double capacity for storage and food transportation, Valdez said. In addition, in that same time frame the two Walmart stores in the area have donated a combined total of just over 1 million pounds of food and provided many volunteers, Valdez said.