Theresa Cariño
Theresa Cariño is the founder and volunteer Director of Salud y Cariño. Motivated by her own struggles with self-esteem and bullying as a young person due to a childhood accident that left her scarred, Theresa decided create a safe space for young girls. Investing money from her accident, Theresa started Salud y Cariño with the goal to offer girls the opportunity to connect, grow, and feel good about themselves. Since 2013, she has opened doors for girls to take action and gain confidence through physical activity and healthy choices to live their best lives now and in the future. Theresa works tirelessly to promote, facilitate, and secure funding for the program.
Christy Licker
Christy Licker founded Caroline’s Non-Profit Thrift Shop in July of 2011 in memory of her daughter Caroline. Caroline, a child with special needs, passed away at 16 years of age due to complications following a surgery.
During Caroline’s life, she and Christy received services and support from many organizations. Opening up the all volunteer run thrift shop was a way for her to give back to the community. Since 2011, Christy and her team have given over $1,125,000 in grants to nonprofits working to improve the lives of children.
She has also volunteered her time and expertise to redecorate the family room at Jacob’s Heart, creating a beautiful, comfortable place for families to gather. Christy is an inspirational non-profit leader, devoted to supporting children in the Santa Cruz area.
Janet Fardette
Many years ago on a walk along the San Lorenzo river in downtown Santa Cruz, Janet Fardette asked herself how she could get more people to come appreciate the beauty of the natural space. Since that day she has visited the Riverwalk every Saturday and Monday with a dedicated group of volunteers called the Leveelies that clean up trash at the river, count what they find, share findings with local leaders and advocate for change. She also sends a weekly newsletter to local leaders and even took her fight to the state level and helped secure funding that resulted in a new fitness area for the riverwalk, new native plants and lighting to make the area safe.
Harry Mayo
At 92 years of age, Harry Mayo has volunteered in many organizations over the last 40 years. He has raised over $50,000 for the Salvation Army to buy and rig a food truck to provide sustenance to firefighters on the front lines and organized a group of annual donors. After working as a fireman and a fire chief he went on to work on fundraising projects for the Public Service Employees. Perhaps some of his most important work is his collection and preservation of the history of Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz surfing. He is a founder of the Santa Cruz Surfing Club and still volunteers regularly in the community, giving tours of the Surf Museum.
Sonia Gates
Sonia Gates has been a dedicated volunteer at the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter since 2012, contributing over 600 hours of service using her talents as a photographer. Every week, using her own equipment, she sets up a studio at the shelter and works with her team to take pictures of the dogs for the shelter’s website. She has a knack for bringing shy dogs out of their shells by giving them some of their first experiences with human kindness. In addition to her work on site, Sonia has volunteered as a photographer at multiple shelter fundraisers. She is always eager to help and unfailingly creates a beautiful final product. Her involvement at the shelter even brought her to adopt her own furry friend!
Volunteer Reader Brings the Theatre to Life for Visually Impaired Patrons
Courtesy: Dayna Smith/The Washington Post
Rita Tehan describing the play “All the Way” at Arena Stage.
As the theater lights dim, music turns on and actors start moving onto the stage, most audience members would fix their eyes onto the stage. But the blind or visually-impaired patrons don’t fix their eyes on the stage. Rather, they focus their ears on their headphones to listen to Rita Tehan’s voice describing everything happening onstage.
Rita, 59, of Washington, D.C., is a longtime volunteer at the Metropolitan Washington Ear, a nonprofit organization that provides free theater descriptions, newspaper readings and other audio services for the blind and visually impaired.
This is Rita’s 25th year volunteering with the Metropolitan Washington Ear, but her experience with describing started in her teenage years.
“My father was blind,” Rita said. “He became blind when I was 14 and so, just on my own, watching TV, I would describe what had just happened. He appreciated that.”
Just as her father appreciated her service, Rita knows that the blind patrons she now describes for also appreciate her service. Many people come to her after the show to thank her.
“I got a comment a number of times, that they appreciate knowing why the audience is laughing because it’s usually a visual thing and that really helps them,” Rita said.
Before describing a performance, Rita previews every show at least twice and takes notes of every action that needs to be described. Sighted people might not particularly think about how close the actors are to each other or how their bodies are positioned, but for the blind and visually impaired, every detail is important to understand what is going on in the scene.
Rita and the Metropolitan Washington Ear try to give the blind and visually impaired patrons as much of a similar experience as a sighted audience member would have. This includes having them make their own assumptions.
“You can’t say that somebody is angry or happy or sad,” Rita said. “You have to describe what their face is doing and so if somebody is sad, you say that maybe their brow is furrowed and their head bowed and their mouth is dropping. That kind of thing because we can’t assume. Just because we think the character is happy, we can’t say that.”
Rita has no plans of stopping and said that as long as the Metropolitan Washington Ear exists, she will keep volunteering.
“Being blind is hard enough,” Rita said. “So if you have anything that can help ease that and make any aspect of your life more accessible, I think that’s a good thing.”
If you are inspired by Rita’s story of service and would like to help people who are blind or have a disability, search All for Good for volunteer opportunities in your area.
Linda Levy
Linda Levy is a champion for her local art community, whose volunteer efforts over the past 27 years with several arts organizations have helped increased awareness, attendance, and participation in many arts events, as well as make Santa Cruz County a nationally known arts community. Among Linda’s most notable achievements, is the co-creation of the Santa Cruz Mountains Art Center (SCMAC). Linda has served as a volunteer board member and Executive Director of SCMAC, performing administrative tasks such as strategic planning and grant writing, as well as teaching drawing, ceramics, and digital arts classes. Linda’s long history of art advocacy has paved the way for countless people to experience and appreciate art.
Peggy Galusha
Peggy Galusha began volunteering with Friends Outside in August of 2014, starting off as an Aftercare Case Manager in the Watsonville, Calif., office and then began to assist with Reentry Planning at the Roundtree Medium Security Jail. She is now the lead Jail Visitor for Roundtree. In addition to the work she does at Friends Outside, she is a co-founder of the Yoga For All Movement; thanks to her dedication, the group is now providing yoga services to all 3 jails in Santa Cruz County. She was critical to the success of the Yogathon fundraiser that Friends Outside organized in Spring 2015 in order to support the Aftercare program. Peggy is a true champion for the incarcerated and her selfless service is making a difference not only in their lives, but also in the everyday community.
James Grubbs
At 94 years young, James “Jimmy” Grubbs still finds joy in giving back. The retired steelworker is in the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) sponsored by Fayette County Community Action Agency. He helps prepare and deliver meals to local seniors five days a week to make sure their nutritional needs are met, and also provide some socialization. “A volunteer’s smiling face may be the only human contact they have each day,” said Magan Aston project director for RSVP.
Jimmy spent over 20 years with the Grandma Honeys, a group of seniors who performed western dances at fairs, schools, senior games, and various senior centers all over Pennsylvania. He has also volunteered with local 4-H clubs and Produce to People.
Roy Vigliecca
Eighty-two year old, Roy Vigliecca is a long-time volunteer with the Family Service agency in Santa Cruz, California. He serves as a Peer Counselor, providing active listening, connection and resource referral to seniors in need. He notes that isolation is not just a problem for seniors in residential care and is currently networking in the hopes of re-starting a program to address loneliness for seniors who remain in their homes. Over the years, such programs have been discontinued in Santa Cruz due to fund shortages.
Roy was chosen as a Be the Difference Award Winner by The Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz in 2013. Be sure to check out his video below:
