Volunteer tax preparer helps lower-income filers get their due

Taxpayers who are the least able to pay for help preparing their tax returns often end up paying more in taxes than they should, an inequity that a free tax preparation program on the North Coast is trying to address.

“We brought back $1.3 million in refunds last year to the Sonoma County community,” said Ilene Moran of Santa Rosa. “When our taxpayer receives that income, they go to the local grocery store that is in our economy.

It is said the refunds trickle out sevenfold.”

Moran for the past decade has been a tax preparer and a coordinator for Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, which offers free tax preparation services for people who can’t afford commercial tax preparation.

FILING SUPPORT: Volunteer Income Tax Assistance volunteer Ilene Moran, left, helps Amy Evans prepare her taxes this week. (CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / The Press Democrat)

The group serves working people who are low- to moderate-income wage earners, and the majority have dependent children, said Darlene Fiscus, United Way vice president. “Either they don’t have a computer to do their taxes or they are not fluent in English, and tax forms are not in Spanish.”

The program serves those with a family income of less than $50,000. It includes illegal residents who may not have a Social Security Number, but pay taxes using a Taxpayer Identification Number.

“People who are making that level of wages don’t have expendable income to pay $150 to $300 or $400 to get their taxes done,” Fiscus said.

Last year, tax preparers in the program prepared 1,385 returns and brought in $2 million in refunds to the three counties, Fiscus said.

The program has 70 preparers who are certified by the IRS to prepare state and federal returns, she said.

Moran is an accountant for Sonoma County Human Services, one of 30 government agencies, businesses and non-profits that are involved.

“I enjoy doing taxes and also like to volunteer in one way or another,” Moran said. “This opportunity was a great way to combine both, to do taxes as well as provide something to the community.”

The volunteers prepare basic tax returns that take advantage of many credits such as the earned income tax credit and education and child and dependent care credits that might otherwise be overlooked.

“The taxpayers who come to us are so genuinely grateful we have this program” Moran said. “They get cash back in their pockets. It is for items they need; they pay rent, buy a new car. It is so neat to see how grateful they are.”

The decade-old program is modeled after one started in Alameda County.

“When I started as a tax preparer, I would do maybe three or six a week, maybe 100 tax returns a season,” Moran said. “Now I fill in to do tax returns and I am also a site coordinator. I am go-to person for volunteers at a site and I teach the volunteers in a classroom-type setting on weekends.”

The tax preparation sessions, which take about an hour, are done at 30 locations in the three counties. Information and appointments can be scheduled by calling 211, the Sonoma County Volunteer Center information center, or at www.unitedwaywinecountry.org/eitc.

You can reach Staff Writer Bob Norberg at 521-5206 or bob.norberg@pressdemocrat.com.

Man brings foster kids, animals together at Forget Me Not Farms

Blake Ridgway enjoys working with kids and animals. At Forget Me Not Farm in Santa Rosa, he found a perfect place to volunteer.

Ridgway mentors foster kids who are learning how to care for animals at the farm, a program of Sonoma County’s Humane Society. “It’s an opportunity to change the lives of kids and help animals, too,” he said.

Last year, he worked with a 17-year-old boy inside the Humane Society’s animal shelter. They helped abused dogs with socialization and training by walking the dogs and teaching them to obey basic commands.

Blake Ridgway, right, and a teenage boy he mentors through the Forget Me Not Farm play with a dog named Nico at the Sonoma Humane Society in Santa Rosa. (BETH SCHLANKER/ The Press Democrat)

“He had an innate ability to work with dogs that were highly aggressive,” Ridgway said. “He’s a really mellow kid.”

The animal shelter’s staff was impressed with the young man and gave him more challenging assignments. “Once they saw how the dogs reacted to him, they upped the ante,” Ridgway said.

“There was a real sense of pride for him. It was neat to see his confidence.”

Ridgway now is mentoring his second foster teen.

Forget Me Not Farm’s mentoring program is for foster youth aged 14 to 19. They learn skills that can lead to jobs as veterinary assistants, dog trainers, dog groomers or animal care technicians.

About 100 kids have been through the program, said director Carol Rathmann. For those who have been exposed to violence, it’s a way to learn compassion.

“Our goal is to break the cycle of abuse,” she said. “We teach them nurturing and caring skills.”

Mentors and teens get orientation and training. Staff match them based on the teens’ talents and needs.

Most volunteer in the animal shelter, next door to Forget Me Not Farm. Others work with farm animals or in the farm’s horticultural program. The farm also offers humane education, farm tours and an adventure camp.

Ridgway, an avid bicyclist, learned about the farm from Levi’s GranFondo, the annual Sonoma County charity ride. GranFondo is Forget Me Not Farm’s largest private supporter, donating $160,000 over the past three years.

Ridgway lives in Santa Rosa and works for a lumber company in Richmond, where he sells sustainable forest products.

“He works great with the kids,” Rathmann said. “He’s very understanding and patient, an incredible role model.” Forget Me Not Farm always needs mentors, but men are especially in demand, she said.

“Anything you do for kids has ramifications way down the road,” Ridgway said. “They may not remember your name, but they remember an act. You can let them know you believe in them.”

You can reach Staff Writer Steve Hart at 521-5205 or steve.hart@ pressdemocrat.com.

Gordie Stedman is a docent at the Sonoma Mission, volunteering to give tours to visitors for at least six hours a month. (Jeff Kan Lee / PD)

By MARTIN ESPINOZA
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Gordie Stedman, a retired Santa Rosa firefighter who frequently dons period clothing to recount historic tales of the Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma, will tell you flat out that he has neither a fascination with history nor any thespian talents.

But what he does have is the urge to educate and give a little bit of his time.

“After retiring, I decided to give something back to the community, so I started doing this docent work,” he said.

Six hours a month, Stedman volunteers his time with Sonoma State Historic Park, which includes the mission, the Sonoma Barracks and the home of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. He recounts the rich history of the mission to groups of students, seniors and tourists.

“It’s a good feeling to pass on the information,” he said. “I try to have some kind of anecdote from virtually every corner of the mission.”

His costume includes a loose-fitting shirt worn over Levi’s. He has a band of red tied around the waist and the shirt hangs over the pants to hide the historically incorrect rivets on his Levi’s.

The clothes, though far from authentic, set the stage for the history he conveys in anecdotes.

Stedman points out that San Francisco Solano, the last of the California missions, was founded in 1823 as a military outpost by Mexican authorities to counter the Russian presence at Fort Ross.

The area had become part of the newly formed Mexican Empire after Mexico gained its independence from Spain two years earlier.

“The major purpose was to make sure the Russians didn’t encroach on the newly obtained territory,” Stedman said.

General Vallejo’s story illustrates the transition of the North Coast from Spanish to Mexican to American territory.

When construction of the mission was completed in 1834, the mission was placed in the control of a young Vallejo.

But Vallejo, an admirer of the “great Republic” of the United States, soon realized that Mexico would have a difficult time holding onto California and eventually threw his lot in with the American expansion.

Stedman, 73, has been volunteering at the historic Sonoma park since 2003. He also was a docent at the Petaluma Adobe until the Adobe’s operating hours were cut significantly as part of state budget cuts.

He still is part of the Petaluma Adobe Living History Day, helping kids make candle holders for candles they make. He performs similar volunteer work at the Victorian Christmas day at the Vallejo House.

Stedman was born in New York and came with his family to California when he was an infant. The family moved from Burlingame to Sonoma Valley in 1948, when he was a fifth-grader. He attended El Verano School and Sonoma High.

He was a Santa Rosa firefighter for 30 years, 23 as a deputy chief. After “retiring” a couple of times, Stedman finally ended his department duties in 1997. After that, he worked as the administrator of the local Moose lodge until 2001.

Two years later, he learned about the docent work and took a training course.

“I’m not a historian,” he said. “It was there and someone needed to do it, so I decided to help out.”

Stedman said he likes “to pass on information,” as well as trying to “make the mission come alive.”

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com.

By MARY CALLAHAN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Lynn Weitzenberg enjoyed sports as a student, though for girls of her day there was little to choose from. On the basketball team, girls played half-court only. Some played tennis or swam.

Volunteer Lynn Weitzenberg is the co-chair of the Girls Sports Expo at the Santa Rosa Junior College. (John Burgess / PD)

Weitzenberg didn’t discover soccer until she had her own children. First she coached, then helped to launch the Sonoma County Women’s Soccer League by starting the second of two local women’s teams. She played for about 15 years.

But it was driving girls home from early Girls Sports Expo events and hearing their reactions that prompted her to get involved.

“I would almost be in tears listening how excited they were about trying fencing or rugby or things that they had no idea (about),” she said. “They’d just go, ‘Oh, this was my favorite,’ or ‘This was my favorite.’

“These were little girls that didn’t have soccer moms to take them and sign them up for things,” she recalled. “So I was hooked.”

As a teacher for 18 years at Monroe Elementary, where many of her female students had no exposure to athletics, she was so impressed by the Expo’s value that she volunteered to drive some of her students each year.

Weitzenberg, 64, retired seven years ago and joined the eight-member nonprofit advisory board. For the past several years she has been co-chairwoman with Proctor Terrace third-grade teacher Nancy Cartan, once a Monroe physical education instructor.

Sponsored by the Girl Scouts of Northern California, Santa Rosa Junior College and the Women’s Sports Foundation and founded in 1974 by tennis great Billie Jean King, the Expo each year brings in about 400 girls in third through sixth grade for mini seminars in everything from softball, swimming and track to fencing, judo and disc golf. Private donors also play a role.

The 15th annual Expo takes place today at Santa Rosa Junior College with the help of about 150 volunteers, many of them middle- and high-school students, young female athletes, volunteer coaches and the like.

Many attended the Expo themselves as younger students and went on to play high school and college sports, said founder Penny Hastings. Her long friendship and soccer history with Weitzenberg is one reason the former teacher came on board.

Though girls’ athletics have come a long way since she was a youngster, Weitzenberg said there’s still a need to actively promote sports for girls, especially in an age of sedentary lifestyles and epidemic obesity.

Studies indicate that girls who participate in sports are more likely to get good grades and graduate from high school, have more confidence and better body image, and benefit from a variety of other psychological, physiological and sociological advantages.

Yet women’s college and professional sports opportunities, funding and coverage still lag behind men’s, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation.

In a multicultural community like Santa Rosa, Weitzenberg said, there also are cultural and socioeconomic groups in which girls may not otherwise have opportunities to experience athletics.

Introduced to Girls Sports Expo, she said, they often say, “Can we come next weekend?”

The organization is always in need of new advisory board members, and appreciates anyone willing to volunteer for the event each year. Those interested can contact volunteer coordinator Kelly Garshman at garshman4@aol.com.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.

Collene Camill works as a volunteer for the Petaluma Loves Active Youth (PLAY) program at the Petaluma Health Center. (Crista Jeremiason / PD)

Volunteer helps teach kids to eat right, have healthy lifestyle

By LORI A. CARTER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Children may crinkle their noses at “healthy foods,” but when asked what’s their favorite fruit or vegetable is, they might well say carrot sticks or apple slices.

“We remind them they do like vegetables and healthy things,” said Collene Camill, a volunteer for the Petaluma Health Center’s PLAY program for overweight kids. “We try to teach them the reason why they want to eat healthy. Something like that can be a healthy alternative to a bag of chips.”

PLAY, which stands for Petaluma Loves Active Youth, is a program of the health center where children and their families are directed if a pediatric patient is overweight or obese.

Kyla Simpson, a physician’s assistant and the health center’s pediatric wellness coordinator, runs the PLAY program and Camill is one of the longtime volunteer leaders.

Many of the health center’s patients are low income and often those households aren’t getting the messages about healthy eating — or find it difficult to buy and prepare healthy food on a tight budget, Simpson said.

A 2009 California Health Interview Survey showed that more than a third of low-income Sonoma County children ages 2 to 11 and almost half of all low-income teens ages 12 to 19 are overweight or obese. The same study showed that 70 percent of low-income adults reported being overweight or obese, compared with 59 percent of other adults.

In weekly PLAY classes, parents and children learn about healthy food choices, food preparation and exercise.

The education portion of the program covers six main topics: portion size, healthy snacking, the importance of breakfast, family meals, the inclusion of fruits and vegetables and healthy beverages. Half of the hourlong class involves movement — which can be yoga, sit-ups or even hip-hop dancing.

“We also touch on the importance of sleep, because that’s a really important part of general health,” Simpson said.

As a volunteer, Camill, 23, is gaining valuable experience toward her career goal. The Petaluma native earned a degree in human biology from UC San Diego and wants to be a physician’s assistant like Simpson.

In the past year, Camill has learned about various insurance and assistance programs in addition to figuring out how to communicate with children, preteens and adults about their health needs.

“We talk about healthy options . . . good options and what to try to avoid,” she said. “Just eating breakfast is important, even if you’re in a rush. We have them try to make goals of eating healthier. Instead of eating an unhealthy cereal for breakfast, how about oatmeal?”

Simpson said PLAY organizers are hoping to find another sponsor for a fresh food program after a Kaiser mini-grant expired. That grant paid for fresh fruits and vegetables grown by Petaluma Bounty and donated to PLAY participants.

Using such examples of fresh produce, PLAY leaders conduct demonstrations showing how healthy and tasty meals can be made from the items.

“I enjoy seeing the kids’ progress,” Camill said. “You get them for six weeks at a time . . . It’s really rewarding to see how much they learn. It’s also good seeing them enjoy the exercise as fun rather than work.”

You can reach Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 762-7297 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com.

For people who get the urge to volunteer, Sonoma County has no shortage of organizations ready to put them to work.

Justin Mann volunteers to clean up Santa Rosa parks. (Jeff Kan Lee)

But not all volunteerism is done through nonprofits or other organized community groups. Some people just see something that needs to get done, roll up their sleeves and do it.

Justin Mann is one of those people.

Three years ago, the 34-year-old window treatment installer was playing with his young son at Santa Rosa’s Pioneer Park near his home when he spotted some broken bottles in the playground.

“I was just like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Mann recalled.

So Mann did what any responsible parent would do. He picked up the shards of glass to make sure his son and other kids would be safe.

But then Mann did something most people don’t. He started making a habit of picking up garbage in city parks.

He started with the parks he and his son frequent, like Pioneer, Coffey, Howarth. Then the list grew to parks all over the city. Just last week he pulled 40 pounds of litter from Finley Park.

“It doesn’t cost me anything but my time,” he said.

Mann said he’s been painfully aware in recent years of the decline in upkeep of the city parks. He knows that budget woes have forced the city to slash the number of parks maintenance workers to just a handful.

“They’re just barely keeping the parks safe for children, let alone cleaning them,” Mann said.

But as a single dad without a lot of spare cash, Mann said parks are hugely important to him and his 4-year-old son Thomas, and he can’t stand by and watch them deteriorate.

“To me, parks are a vital city service, just as important as street signs or police officers,” said Mann.

When he lived in San Francisco several years ago, Mann said his neighbors in the Sunset district were part of a city initiative that encouraged people to keep their several-block area clean, he said.

That spirit of community service stuck, and has been building ever since that day in Pioneer Park.

Some might have just called the city and demanded that city workers come clean up the mess, but Mann said he’s not like that.

“I consider myself part of this city, part of this community, so if something needs to be done, I’m more than happy to do it,” he said.

At first he just started carrying a pair of gloves and some garbage bags in the trunk of his car, and bent down to pick up litter wherever he saw it. After he threw out his back, he graduated to a “garbage claw” that keeps him upright and helps him work faster, he said.

Then last year, after attending a few Occupy Santa Rosa protests, Mann made some great contacts with people committed to making a difference in their community, he said. They inspired him to start a Facebook site called Santa Rosa Utopia. Through it, he organized a city parks cleanup last weekend at Juilliard Park, with the city providing a permit and donating garbage bags.

Mann is even spending his own money on coffee and donuts for volunteers.

Where it goes from here, he’s not sure. He knows it’s hard to get people to volunteer for work as unglamorous as picking up garbage, but he wants to take a shot at organizing a broader, citywide park cleanup effort.

“At some point, somebody’s just got to do it,” Mann said.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com.

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Louis Hopfer believes that people who succeed in life are those who have the courage to make major changes.

Louis Hopfer, volunteer at Tamayo House for Social Advocates for Youth. (Kent Porter / PD)

And now, Hopfer, 63, is channeling the life lessons he learned, and the stories he collected along the way, into his pursuit of helping young adults improve their lives.

Hopfer volunteers at Tamayo House, a residence in Santa Rosa run by Social Advocates for Youth, where about two dozen young adults rent rooms and live together in an environment designed to ease the transition from foster care or homelessness to life as an independent adult.

“The design is to be a residence,” Hopfer said. “You pay rent, but there are rules. The idea is to learn certain skills. Come to the meetings, pay rent.”

Hopfer began volunteering at Tamayo House nearly two years ago. He was involved in other volunteer projects, but wanted to do something more personal. And he knows that to make a lasting impact takes time, so he’s been showing up at Tamayo House for several hours a week for nearly two years.

“I want to be everyone’s friend,” Hopfer said. “In the first month, I came in and I just said, ‘Hi.’ It took me about two months until I got people to talk to me . . . . People realized I was sticking around.”

Aside from teaching residents, ages 18-25, about personal finance, and trying to convince the young adults to drink less soda, Hopfer’s main focus is to be a friend.

“The best way to describe him is like a mentor, in a way,” said Frances Welch, facility monitor, who lives at Tamayo House. “He’s just really good with interacting with the age group we have. He has a lot of life experience and he’s trying to share it with everyone in a really positive manner.”

Hopfer has big ideas. And he also knows his own limitations. He posts his phone number on a whiteboard in the complex, so the residents can call if they need any kind of help. When he wanted to help the youth enjoy their outdoor space, he brought a barbecue for the yard. But he drew the line at tending a garden.

“It needs an adult who will be here regularly,” Hopfer said of the green space. “I don’t have a black thumb, but I don’t have a green thumb.”

Just as he chooses how he gives to the youth, Hopfer aims to teach them that even when life presents challenges, there are alternatives and choices.

“Because I touched so many different facets of life, I can find metaphors to explain a point,” Hopfer said. “If I can give them a sense of direction and help them find what they like — what is it you want to be? . . . I feel good just for that moment when I can take the decision away and be their friend.”

You can reach Staff Writer Cathy Bussewitz at 521-5276 or cathy.bussewitz@pressdemocrat.com.

For 15 years, Healdsburg woman has helped trap, foster, fix feral cats

By JEREMY HAY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Diane Fairclough, right, prepares a cat for being neutered at Forgotten Felines. Fairclough has been volunteering at the center for 15 years. (Crista Jeremiason / PD)

“Here’s a little guy,” she said, lifting a blanket to reveal a black and white kitten with big green eyes. “He’s a cutie patootie.”

Fairclough, 56, has seen a lot of cutie patooties over the 15 years she has volunteered with Forgotten Felines, a Santa Rosa nonprofit that works to save feral cats from being euthanized and to reduce their numbers in the wild.

“I get just the satisfaction of making a difference,” she said. “I’m helping animals, but I’m also helping people. It’s good for the community.”

A country girl, Fairclough came by her love of animals growing up on a ranch near Petaluma. But her interest in feral cats was fired by the discovery in the mid-1990s that her mother, ailing from Alzheimer’s disease, was tending a colony of about 17.

She turned for help to Forgotten Felines, with whose guidance she trapped the cats and had them spayed and neutered.

“I was able to take them back to my mom, and she was able to have them with her until she died,” Fairclough said. “It was special for Mom, and I wanted to support Forgotten Felines anyway I could.”

Today, the Healdsburg resident is one of the nonprofit’s longest-serving volunteers. She helps trap cats (the best bait is Trader Joe’s cat tuna, which she described as “very fragrant”). She prepares them for surgery. She takes them home until they are adopted or can be placed back in the wild.

A few years back, she adopted one herself: Cubby, a black-and-white minx she was caring for at home, one of more than 100 cats she has fostered.

“The call came, ‘It’s time to bring Cubby down,’ and I’ve never done this before. I started crying,” Fairclough said. “I said, ‘I can’t do this.’ “

“She brings her heart and passion to everything we do,” said Jennifer Kirchner, who became the group’s executive director the year Fairclough started working for its Pick of the Litter thrift store.

The organization’s main goal is to get feral cats altered so they can’t reproduce. Most cats come to their attention from people who have started noticing and feeding strays.

“That’s when they call us. What do we do next?” said Fairclough.

“We tell them, ‘Rather than take them to the shelter, where they’ll be euthanized, why don’t you just bring them in so we can fix them and they can live out their lives?’” she said. “It’s saving lives and it’s reducing nuisance issues.”

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 521-5212 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com.

Santa Rosa man works to ease others’ access to programs, benefits

By GUY KOVNER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Coffee, doughnuts and help with problems such as homelessness and health care are available to military veterans every Tuesday morning in Santa Rosa.

And it’s all provided by volunteers such as Andy Pyburn, a Vietnam-era veteran who was once homeless and approached the Department of Veterans Affairs bureaucracy on his own.

“I made a lot of useless trips,” said Pyburn, 55, a Santa Rosa resident who served seven years in the Army, mostly stationed in Europe, before leaving as a staff sergeant in 1981.

Like many of his peers, Pyburn got along fine without VA benefits for years, attending Santa Rosa Junior College on the GI Bill and working at various jobs that provided health insurance.

But circumstances caught up with him, including complications from a service injury — his jaw was broken by a tank hatch — and his own “lack of focus on my other responsibilities,” Pyburn said.

While setting his own life in order, Pyburn helped start Sonoma County Vet Connect, a nonprofit and emphatically nonpolitical organization, in 2008.

Its motto is “veterans helping veterans,” and its goal is to form a bridge between local veterans and their families and the government and private agencies available to help them with medical care, housing, employment and other services.

Pyburn, who lives on a VA pension, is one of about 15 regular volunteers, most of them Vietnam-era vets, who set out the coffee and doughnuts from 9a.m. to noon Tuesdays at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial building, with similar sessions once a month at the Guerneville, Sonoma and Petaluma vets buildings.

“I don’t like seeing any of my fellow veterans miss an opportunity to move forward,” Pyburn said. He knows firsthand how a veteran can slip into the “cycle of homelessness,” sleeping under bridges and in shelters.

“Our goal is to set them up for success,” said Pyburn, who spends up to 18 hours a week on Vet Connect business.

That often starts with personally introducing a veteran to a representative of one of several agencies — including the VA Outpatient Clinic in Santa Rosa, North Bay Vet Center in Rohnert Park and the North Bay Veterans Resource Center — that attend Vet Connect sessions.

“We march them over to the table and introduce them (to the agency officials),” Pyburn said.

Vet Connect will call an agency and make an appointment for a veteran, and even give him or her a bus ticket to get there, if needed.

The organization buys furniture for veterans who get set up in subsidized housing, as he did just two years ago.

And they counsel those vets on how to budget their veterans benefits to make rent and utility payments and buy groceries before “you go running out and doing what you want,” he said.

Vet Connect was seeing about 10 veterans a week when it started, and now hosts about 40 new and returning clients on Tuesday mornings.

“It’s rewarding work,” Pyburn said.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.

By DEREK MOORE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Despite having a career in veterinary care, Sue Rowlands had never seen a greyhound until she and her husband had a chance encounter with several of the dogs at Santa Rosa’s downtown market.

Sue Rowlands of Oakmont rescued Badger 8 years ago.

But Rowlands and her husband, Chuck, were transfixed. A few weeks later, the couple submitted an application to bring a greyhound into their Oakmont home.

They didn’t quite know what to expect when Badger padded in. But the relationship turned out beautifully.

“Golly, he’s been a great dog,” Sue Rowlands said.

In addition to getting a new companion, Rowlands also found a new outlet for her altruistic ways by becoming a volunteer with Wine Country Greyhound Adoption.

“She’s done just about every volunteer position in our organization,” said Heather Castro, who co-founded the nonprofit rescue organization in 2004. “She’s just very dedicated.”

Castro was working with a different rescue group when she visited the Rowlands’ home for a site visit, which was part of the couple’s application to get Badger.

Rowlands has since made similar visits to homes as a volunteer with Wine Country Greyhound Adoption. Castro said one of Rowlands’s strengths as a volunteer is her good sense in determining who would be a suitable host for one of the dogs.

Castro said her own interest in the breed came about when she was a teenager and saw a TV show that included the graphic images of two greyhounds being euthanized after their racing days were over.

“I couldn’t believe that someone could take these beautiful dogs and put them down after they were done racing, especially because there was nothing medically wrong with them,” she said.

Castro said the number of greyhounds that are killed needlessly has decreased significantly over the years, a fact she credits to rescue organizations finding homes for the dogs.

Castro has three greyhounds: Chiquita, Tempest and Shelby.

“They are a large dog,” she said of of the breed, “but they can live very easily in the house because they are so calm and clean.”

Sue Rowlands and Badger used to make weekly rounds at Sutter Medical Center to visit patients. But that ended this summer when the 10-year-old dog began experiencing health issues.

Now the pair mainly enjoy walking around their Oakmont neighborhood together.

Castro said Wine Country Greyhound Adoption has about 30 active volunteers, in addition to about 200 people who are members of an online chat group.
She said the agency’s greatest need is people to foster greyhounds until the dogs can be placed in permanent homes. There are other volunteer opportunities available.

For more information, visit the agency’s website at www.winecountrygreyhounds.com. Or call (800) 924-7397.

You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com.