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In This Issue...
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Local Volunteers Give Area Nonprofits More Than Just a Day of Service
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Local Volunteers Give Area Nonprofits More Than Just a Day of Service
By Jessica Lyons
Melissa McDill has heard all of the excuses as to why people don't volunteer.
"I hear people say, 'I don't have time. I work," said the McDill Associates CEO, who also chairs the Jacob's Heart Children's Cancer Support Services board of directors. "I say, 'So do I. I run a business. I have a family. But I made the time, and I don't even notice the time. It doesn't feel like another obligation that takes up my time. It just feels better.'"
McDill believes that this community would see much improvement if other residents did as she does.
"If only everyone volunteered for any organization," she continued. "There's such need out there."
Hundreds of thousands of Americans participated in volunteer service projects across the U.S. on Jan. 18, heeding President Barack Obama's call to service on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
When stormy weather clouded Santa Cruz County's efforts, most of the day's scheduled events were cancelled because of the rain. About 1,000 people registered to volunteer, said the Volunteer Centers' Becka Heikilla, adding that the service opportunities will be rescheduled.
But it takes more than one day of service to keep nonprofits and community organizations up and running.
People like McDill and others who volunteer their time and energy on a regular basis — and the area nonprofits that rely on people with day jobs and families — hope local residents will take the call to serve to heart, and make volunteering a regular part of their lives.
"We get so busy we forget," McDill said. "And once you volunteer, there's this spirit of our human nature that wants to do it. But we get busy and we forget to take the time to give back and do something for others."
Mending Young Bodies and Souls
Jacob's Heart provides support to families of kids who have cancer.
About 75 percent of the families are low income, and in 2008, the Freedom-based nonprofit gave more than $61,000 to families.
The money helped them pay bills, buy groceries and gas to drive some 60-plus miles each way to take their kids to receive medical treatment at the UC San Francisco hospital or the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto.
The organization has six paid staffers (four full-time and two part-time) — and more than 570 volunteers who answer phones, raise funds, prepare meals for support groups, make quilts and knit teddy bears, organize community events and a host of other activities.
"Long-term volunteers provide the ongoing commitment and dedication Jacob's Heart needs to complete necessary administrative and event planning tasks on a day-to-day basis," said Elizabeth Semmelmann, Jacob's Heart's program and volunteer coordinator. "Without the wonderful smiling faces, kind hearts, and talented minds of these devoted volunteers, Jacob's Heart would not be able to provide the unique blend of supportive services to over 85 local families facing the challenges of pediatric cancer."
McDill says she spends between 30 and 40 hours a month volunteering at Jacob's Heart, attending board meetings, creating marketing material and graphics, planning events and fundraising. It took some arm-twisting to get her involved, though.
At the time, in 1998, she was battling cancer herself.
"I was in the middle of treatment for breast cancer and I was on a field trip with my 8-year-old son, McCoy," McDill remembered.
The nonprofit's founder, Lori Butterworth, had a son in McCoy's class. Butterworth noticed McDill's head, bald from undergoing chemotherapy, told McDill about Jacob's Heart and asked her to get involved.
"I was really apprehensive," McDill said. "I was in the middle of my fight with cancer and not sure what the outcome would be and the fear relating to that. And these were children with cancer. I thought it would be too sad and too overwhelming."
Butterworth didn't give up. She told McDill the organization needed a computer to donate to a teen with cancer.
"I have computers because I run an advertising agency," McDill said, so she donated a computer and her staff installed it for the young man.
A few weeks later, Butterworth called again. The teen died, and the family didn't have enough money to pay for the memorial service. Would McDill and her company donate funds?
"All of my staff donated and we helped pay for this young man's service," McDill said.
Then the family asked McDill to attend the service.
"I was still in the middle of my own chemo," she said. "But I agreed, and it was the most touching example of love and passion and appreciation, and that was it. The next thing I know, I'm on the board. The next thing I know, I'm vice president and now president—and I've never been on a board before."
Today, 12 years later, McDill hears her former fear and apprehension echoed in the voices of would-be volunteers.
"I tell them, 'It's the exact opposite of being sad and not knowing what to say. The children teach you what to say. They teach you to value and live life. They change your life for the better.'"
Learning Early about Volunteering
Cruz Car Wash owner Jeremy S. Levin learned the importance of community service early on in his life.
His grandmother, Helen Salz, started San Francisco's Open Air School (now called Presidio Hill) in 1918. It's the oldest continuously operating progressive school in California.
In 1934, she co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. Levin's mother, Margaret Salz Levin, co-founded the Daisy Upscale Resale Store in Capitola.
All the shop's proceeds benefit the Family Service Agency of the Central Coast.
His father, Norman Levin, a former Santa Cruz mayor in the mid '60s, served on Governor Edmund "Pat" Brown's labor relations board in addition to other community-minded posts.
"I came from a really great family," said Levin, the chair-elect of Second Harvest Food Bank's Board of Directors. "I like to think beyond myself. I'm a Rotarian and our motto sums up how I feel about life: service above self."
In addition to volunteering with Second Harvest, Levin previously served on the Friends of the Long Marine Lab board and the Seymore Marine Discovery Center capital campaign, where he helped raise money for its current building overlooking the Monterey Bay.
He also volunteered as a fundraiser for the Rebele Family Shelter, bringing in more than $1 million for its building on River Street and Highway 1. And he serves on the board of the Delta School for at-risk high school students, which was co-founded by Levin's father. Ninety percent of its students go on to attend college.
"Everybody has a nonprofit of their own choice, something they care deeply about," Levin said.
"My own particular bent is for housing and food because at the most primary level, if you don't have a roof over your head and you don't have food, you aren't going to make a lot of progress.
I like to start at the critical need area.
"I would like to see more people become involved in nonprofits, sitting on boards, being out fundraising, because our wonderful panoply of nonprofits in Santa Cruz County depends on volunteers at every level."
Taking the Opposite Path
When it came to volunteering, Diana Susoy took the opposite path from her mother.
"My mother was never involved in (my) school," said Susoy, a librarian and school volunteer. "I remember her saying, 'I'm not going to a PTA meeting. They'll rope me into doing something.'
It wasn't something that was instilled in me, but it's something that I'm trying to instill in my kids."
Susoy, on the other hand, has been a PTA meeting regular for the past 13 years. She started when her older child—who graduated from Soquel High last year—was in kindergarten, first helping out in the classroom, then raising money for schools and volunteering at various community events.
Susoy works as a librarian at Live Oak Elementary.
But with budget cuts stripping education spending, Susoy volunteers as many librarian hours as she works.
Shrinking budgets make it even more important for people to volunteer and raise money for schools, Susoy says.
She's a board member of the Soquel High Fund, a nonprofit that raises money for academic, art and athletic programs at the high school.
"This makes it possible for the teams and clubs to raise money, and parents and community members can support their kids in one way or another," said Susoy.
Plus, she's providing an example for her kids.
"I want my kids to know that education is important," she said. "And if it's important for them to receive an education, then it's important for me to be there."
Business People Also Help
Schools, health organizations and groups that feed and clothe those in need may be the obvious choices for community service. But business groups, like chambers of commerce, rely on volunteers too.
"We could not run the Chamber without volunteers for all of our events as well as many of our community activities," said Karen Hibble, executive director of the Aptos Chamber of Commerce.
Local volunteers make ornaments and decorate the Aptos Christmas tree.
Some 10,000 people come to see the annual Chamber-sponsored July 4 parade — an event that requires about 100 volunteers in addition to the Chamber's three paid staff.
"We could not do the parade with three people," Hibble said. "Especially now with all of the budget cuts, we have to depend on volunteers more and more."
Cherie Robideaux owns Woodworm Party Store and chairs the Capitola-Soquel Chamber of Commerce.
She donates her time, party supplies and decorations for the Capitola Art and Wine Festival, Vintage Motorcycle Show and different kickoff events around town.
She also works with the Boys and Girls Club and Jacob's Heart.
"I'm always looking for ways not only to improve my business but to improve the business community around us," she said.
Bob Norton, a business broker and the unofficial chairman of the Aptos July 4 Parade, also serves on the board of directors for Above the Line, a nonprofit that provides housing, education, placement and other services to at-risk kids.
He says he's been lucky in life, and it's his responsibility to give back to the community and the people he cares about.
"Everybody has a passion in life," he said, "every passion has a cause, and every cause has a need for people. Find something you like. It might be the ocean; it might be airplanes; it might be kids; it might be baseball. But everything you have a passion for has a possibility for volunteerism."
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