Bill Hess remembers his first call-out as a volunteer member of the Petaluma Police Department’s chaplaincy team.

Bill Hess.

It was for a firefighter and his wife whose triplets were stillborn.

Hess asked himself what he had gotten himself into. But eight years later, he’s still with the team.

“First of all, it needs to be done,” he said. “There is an absolute need for this, for people to have someone in their home when a loved one dies.”

Hess, 59, lives in Petaluma with his wife, Judy. The couple, who have three children, are employed by Petaluma’s Committee on the Shelterless, Bill as director of the Mary Isaak Center.

The couple moved to Petaluma from Boston in 1991.

Hess worked for a technical company in Larkspur before he started his own company that provided scheduling software for health care providers. After he sold the company in 2000, Hess, who is ordained as a Southern Baptist minister, founded his own church.

Petaluma police chaplains have to be licensed ministers and recognized by a local congregation. Another minister approached Hess about becoming a chaplain.

“I thought I’d give it a go,” he said.

Hess and the other chaplains are on call for a week every month. They respond to emergencies to assist people in crisis.

Hess said some people just want someone to talk to. Others ask for spiritual guidance, which he’s happy to provide.

It’s the kind of thing that law enforcement officers don’t have the time to concentrate on because of their focus on getting their job done.

Hess said chaplains typically are dispatched for a death every month. He figures he’s been to 60 such calls in the eight years he’s been a volunteer.

“You learn that if you’re not careful, you will absorb all that grief,” he said.

The chaplains rely on one another to get through difficult calls. Hess said he could never think about quitting because he would feel like he was letting the team down.

They in turn appreciate his devotion.

“He has fielded some of the most difficult calls and done so with grace and compassion,” said Brad Edgbert, a fellow chaplain and senior pastor at Hillside Church.

Hess also will be honored as a distinguished alumnus in a ceremony planned later this year at the high school in Dayton, Ohio, where he graduated.

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

By JEREMY HAY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

You might well have seen Martha Skinner on Saturday, if you were outside Herbert Slater Middle School readying to take part in or watch the start of the Sonoma County Human Race.

Volunteer Martha Skinner has been a fixture at the Human Race for the entire 31 years in Santa Rosa. (Kent Porter / PD)

She was wearing a green apron and moving fast — but staying calm — as she oversaw a crew of about a dozen other volunteers registering people for the event.

“It’s not stressful; it’s just quick,” she said.

If, over the past 31 years, you’ve given a dollar or written a check to an organization raising money through the Sonoma County Human Race, Skinner has very probably tallied your donation.

“I’ve counted about $16 million in pledges over the years,” she said.

Skinner, who has been involved with the event since its beginning in 1981, was for 29 years the volunteer in charge of counting and double-counting how much came in through pledges — and setting up the system to ensure everything went by the book, with checks and balances and multiple sets of eyes at all times.

“I worked in a bank for a while and I’m very cautious about how it’s handled,” she said.

And if you saw the start of the race Saturday, you’re doing almost as well as and probably better than Skinner.

In all her years helping make things run smoothly at what has become the nation’s largest Human Race fundraiser, the 60-year-old Santa Rosa resident has seen the race start twice.

“I’ve been busy,” she said.

That’s an understatement, said Barbara Fisher, volunteer coordinator at the Volunteer Center of Sonoma County, which puts on the race.

“She’s on top of everything,” Fisher said.

Skinner and her family — she has two daughters, now age 25 and 41 — moved from San Anselmo to Santa Rosa in 1977. In 1981, her neighbor, Patty Van Tuyl, came over.

“She came home one day and said, ‘We’re starting the Human Race, and we would like you to be bookkeeper,’ ” Skinner recalled last week.

“I saw her last year and I said, ‘You know what? I’m still doing this and it’s all your fault,” Skinner said with a fast laugh. It was a fast interview, crammed into a few minutes, because there was a lot to do before the race.

The Human Race in its first year raised $1,800. These days it raises about $900,000 for about 250 nonprofits ranging from Canine Companions to the American Cancer Society to local elementary schools. Last year, 300 people volunteered to help make the event happen, and about 9,000 people ran or walked in it.

“To me it’s the essence of the Volunteer Center,” Skinner said.

A Berkeley native and the daughter of a high school English teacher, Skinner said she has volunteered at one organization or another since college.

“It’s just part of me,” she said.

She received her anthropology degree from the University of Washington, but has not followed the lead of Indiana Jones and his ilk. After school, she and her husband, Patrick, started a family and she started helping out with the American Association of University Women.

“I’ve spent my whole life volunteering,” she said. I just love giving my time. I like working with people and I was probably never going to get a job in anthropology because I got married and had two kids and I wasn’t going to be able to fly off to Egypt.”

The commitment to the Volunteer Center — where she is now a board member — lasts for much more than the day of the Human Race.

She chips in with events such as the Sweetheart Ball, which raises funds for the the center, and with disbursing through the year the funds raised through the Human Race.

“She’s such an asset to the center,” said Alicia Alexander, the Volunteer Center’s special events coordinator. “She’s one-of-a-kind and you know you can count on Martha.

“I can’t imagine the Human Race without her.”

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

Alex Grinshpan works in the Village Park Garden in Sebastopol. The Analy High senior just got back from Nicaragua and with a group of west county students started a two-acre organic garden. (Jeff Kan Lee / PD)

By GUY KOVNER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Shoveling dirt under a hot equatorial sun doesn’t sound like much of a way for a high school student to spend spring break.

But for Alex Grinshpan, a senior at Sebastopol’s Analy High School, it was “probably the most fun I’ve ever had.”

Digging down three feet to establish a two-acre organic farm in the small Nicaraguan town of Chacraseca was “pretty intense,” said Grinshpan, 18.

In addition to working the soil, his nine-day visit to Nicaragua last month involved visits to nearby farms, discussions of history and politics and low-budget tourism, staying in hostels and visiting spots like Lake Nicaragua and climbing a volcano on one of its islands.

Grinshpan was one of 18 students from Analy and Forestville’s El Molino High participating in Global Student Embassy’s first trip to Nicaragua, the largest country in Central America, from March 16-25.

GSE, founded in 2008 by brothers Lucas and Jasper Oshun of Sebastopol, has sent 11 groups of high school students, mostly from Sonoma and Marin counties, on working trips to Argentina, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Peru and Tanzania.

Projects include an irrigation canal, tree plantings, and mural paintings along with building school gardens in each country.

Grinshpan said he joined GSE two years ago simply for the chance at foreign travel. Last spring, he was one of eight Analy students who planted 200 native trees at a nature preserve in Ecuador.

He’s also gotten his hands in the dirt at GSE’s Village Park Garden in Sebastopol, which has produced more than 1,500 pounds of organic produce for Food for Thought AIDS Food Bank and the Graton Day Labor Center.

In Nicaragua, Grinshpan said he encountered third world poverty, with people packed into aging buildings on trash-strewn streets.

“It made me feel grateful for what I have at home,” he said.

Grinshpan also observed that Nicaraguans living with few material goods seemed well-adjusted, even content, with their situation.

“People called us gringos,” he said, but it didn’t sound hostile. “I felt safe when I was there.”

His Spanish language skills improved considerably, and Grinshpan said he felt the trip’s work was worthwhile, introducing biointensive farming techniques in a country where large-scale agriculture, such as cotton farming, relies on heavy use of fertilizer and pesticides.

The farm that will feed students at Chacraseca schools started with the “double-digging” of planting beds, digging down three feet and mixing compost into the soil.

Whether its working in a foreign land or in a garden close to home, Grinshpan said the volunteer experience is rewarding.

“It definitely makes you feel like you are part of the big picture,” he said, “doing one little piece (of work) for the world.”

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

Nichole Warwick, right, talks to Moises Sapir Uribe, a first grader at Brook Haven School in Sebastopol, about recycling during lunchtime, March 29, 2012. (Crista Jeremiason / PD)

By RANDI ROSSMANN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Like many parents, Nichole Warwick began volunteering at her sons’ elementary school when they were young, in her case in Sebastopol.

Yoga classes gave way to gardening sessions and eventually Warwick was helping teach Pine Crest Elementary and Brook Haven School students about respecting the environment, sorting their food scraps and composting.

Her volunteer work helped the Sebastopol Union School District receive a $12,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

As well as bringing prestige to the district, the grant is paying for things such as environmentally-themed theater about worms and watersheds. It’s also paying for a pirate-themed, student-made teaching video on food-scrap sorting techniques and composting.

And it’s buying a greenhouse at the K-8 Brook Haven School campus.

Warwick’s thousands of hours of volunteering, which focus on hands-on green learning, recently earned her awards from the county’s environmental community.

She was chosen as Outstanding Environmental Educator by the Sonoma County Conservation Coalition and the Sonoma chapter of the Sierra Club, which annually sponsors an awards banquet honoring people’s work in the environment.

Warwick said the recognition was overwhelming.

“I keep showing up and I keep collaborating with other people and the results are so much more than I expected. It’s amazing,” she said.

The Forestville resident moved to Sonoma County in 1995 to attend Sonoma State University “and fell in love with the area. It became home to me.”

Warwick began a teaching career, but an injury several years ago has prevented her from working on a steady basis. Volunteering allowed her to stay active in her sons’ schools on her own calendar.

“Volunteering was my way of creating something meaningful in my life,” she said. “These kids are just so encouraging and motivating.”

She began at Pine Crest Elementary. “In 2002 I started teaching yoga and movement and by about 2005 I was doing a lot more of the garden work at the school,” she said.

About three years ago, a course through the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center helped her expand her skills at teaching gardening and environmental and ecological issues. She’s also borrowed ideas from Apple Blossom School in Sebastopol.

Warwick has developed a curriculum for K-5 teachers for hands-on environmental lessons, including a zero-waste lunch program. The composting has helped reduce the school’s typically large amount of food waste, she said.

Warwick said her success as a volunteer is bolstered by many other volunteering parents, as well as supportive district officials and teachers.

You can reach Staff Writer Randi Rossmann at 521-5412 or randi.rossmann@pressdemocrat.com.

Volunteer John Horrell lead a volunteer workday about seeding baby plants at the Casa Grande High School nursery, March 24, 2012. (Christa Jeremiason / PD)

Volunteer helped found Petaluma Bounty garden program, plant sale

By LORI A. CARTER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

John Horrell, who has spent much of his adult life helping people in time of need, is exceedingly modest about his own contributions.

Asked why he helped found Petaluma Bounty’s successful garden program and its plant sale, he praises the sponsors, board members and other volunteers.

Asked how he manages the massive task of propagating thousands of seeds, then transplanting them to larger and larger pots as they grow, he says he’s grateful to all those who donated material, space or manual labor for the plant sale.

Asked what he gets out of volunteering, he says it’s knowing that he’s helping other people.

But those who work side-by-side with Horrell aren’t as shy about proclaiming his value:

“He’s an amazing community resource,” said Ruth Persselin, programs and outreach director of Petaluma Bounty.

Horrell, 64, was born and raised in Sacramento and earned degrees in journalism and communications before traveling around the country for work.

He helped draft early legislation for AIDS education when the disease was called GRID, gay-related immune deficiency. He created a CPR training program that reached 125,000 people in Sacramento and worked to found a similar program in Sonoma County.

He helped promote the California State Fair. He has worked for several nonprofit agencies in disaster relief, and was on the first humanitarian flight into New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina uprooted hundreds of thousands of lives.

Today, his life is a little slower. He kayaks, backpacks and visits his mother in Santa Rosa, who just turned 94 years old. He’s been unemployed for the past six years and is finding it difficult to re-enter the job market at his age.

All the while, though, Horrell has unceasingly focused on helping others.

After being impressed with a Harvest for the Hungry program in Santa Rosa, he helped found a similar program in Petaluma last year. The effort resulted in a plant sale last year that raised $7,000 through donations and the sale.

Horrell and the other volunteers are busy preparing for this year’s sale, planned for 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 5 at the Petaluma Bounty Farm on Shasta Avenue off Petaluma Boulevard North.

Home gardeners will be able to choose from 100 varieties of tomatoes, about 5,000 tomato plants in all, and dozens of other varieties of vegetables, edible plants and more than 50 different herbs. Many varieties are heirlooms and they are all propagated without chemicals, Horrell said.

Horrell, who has struggled to support himself in the past few years, hopes to illustrate how economical and healthy it is to grow your own food.

“One of the biggest ways you can impact your food budget is grow your own salad, easily,” he said. “The idea is we want people to know that growing your own vegetables is a good recreation and a good ‘re-creation’ activity for people.”

A $2 pack of lettuce seeds, he said, can produce enough lettuce for six months, compared to one $3 bag of salad from the grocery store.

Horrell also volunteers with friends for the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation. And again, he credits others.

“We’re only able to volunteer because we have the support of our partners, husbands, wives, family,” he said. “It’s not just about selling plants, but about bringing a community together, making those connections in a community, letting the community know that there are many opportunities to become engaged.”

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

By SAM SCOTT
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

When Mary West was born in 1920, women had gained the right to vote in America just a few months earlier.

Nearly 92 years later, the country has been transformed in countless ways but the Santa Rosa grandmother doesn’t think women have come nearly far enough.

Mary West volunteers with the Women's Political Caucus of Sonoma County, Women in Black and the National Organization of Women. (BETH SCHLANKER/ The Press Democrat)

“We are just not getting our fair share yet,” she said “We have got to get more women elected.”

West isn’t one to take such a state of affairs without pushing back. At 91, she keeps up a volunteer schedule that would test many people generations younger, with much of her energy focused on women’s rights.

She is president of the Sonoma County chapter of the National Organization for Women. She serves on the executive board of the Women’s Political Caucus of Sonoma County, which focuses on getting women elected.

And every Friday at noon, she joins the Women in Black at their silent peace protest at the corner of College and Mendocino avenues.

Last month, West was one of three people honored by the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women at their annual “Women Honoring Women” awards.

“She is a go-to to person for what you need done,” said Anne Ageson, 67, treasurer of the NOW chapter. “She is an inspiration not only to young women, but to some not-so young women.”

West’s energy may one day be explained by science. She has willed her brain to a memory study at the UC San Francisco, the kind of donation for public good that she thinks more people ought to do.

Her own theory for her longevity, though, is that movement begets movement. “If you stay active, then you’ll be active,” she said.

After retiring as a teacher in 1980, she has kept up a life filled with gardening, book clubs and traveling, including working as an English teacher in Poland and Spain.

She was in Chile last year when a 7.1 earthquake sent the country reeling, keeping her there 10 days past her planned departure.

“We got down on the floor and the hotel went from side to side for ages,” she said.

But politics is perhaps her greatest interest, even as age has slowed her some. She uses a cane and can no longer walk precincts in support of candidates, or drive.

But she’s embraced technology in a way that has expanded her limits, using the Internet and email to send out her monthly NOW newsletter that she fills with news on local events and national happenings such as attempts to pass stricter abortion laws.

As a committed liberal, she’s dismayed by what she sees as a turn to right in the national discourse and legislation. She’s not ready to stop pushing back yet.

“We haven’t come far enough,” she said.

You can reach Staff Writer Sam Scott at 521-5431 or at sam.scott@pressdemocrat.com.

Duane De Witt, shown at an undeveloped parcel off McMinn Avenue is Santa Rosa's Roseland neighborhood, has long campaigned for the preservation of open land in the area. (Kent Porter / PD)

Dedicated to his boyhood home, Duane De Witt worked tirelessly toward the establishment of a new neighborhood park

By JULIE JOHNSON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Duane De Witt stepped around a muddy vernal pool as a gang of turkeys puffed out their chests among a stand of oaks he calls “the neighbor-woods.”

The swath of oak trees and grassland along Roseland Creek once was eyed by developers, but last year was set aside to be preserved as Roseland Creek Community Park.

The creekside park between Burbank and McMinn avenues in Santa Rosa’s unincorporated Roseland neighborhood had been on the drawing board for 20 years. De Witt had been at the podium demanding government officials preserve the neighborhood’s disappearing natural areas just as long.

“It’s all about Roseland,” De Witt said. “I know it sounds weird, but I know when I’m an old fart I’m going to be living in Roseland.”

The 56-year-old Santa Rosan spent countless evenings at public hearings speaking before boards, commissions and councils advocating for natural areas and parks in Roseland. The 1.2-square-mile area is one of Santa Rosa’s most dense neighborhoods but has the fewest acres of park land.

The project was personal for De Witt, who grew up in his grandmother’s yellow McMinn Avenue house within view of the 17-acre lot surrounding the creek.

Last year, the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District and the city of Santa Rosa jointly purchased 17 acres for $3.4 million, including a donation from Exchange Bank, which owned 11 acres through foreclosure. Proposed park plans include a public trail, interpretive signs and creek restoration.

De Witt’s outspoken advocacy for the park led members of the Sonoma County Conservation Council in March to honor De Witt as 2011′s Outstanding Grassroots Environmentalist at an annual environmental award celebration at the Sebastopol Veterans Memorial Hall.

“I was very impressed with his dedication to Roseland,” said Santa Rosa City Councilwoman Marsha Vas Dupre, who nominated De Witt for the honor.

Projects like the park rely on outspoken residents like De Witt, said Marc Richardson, director of Santa Rosa’s Recreation Parks and Community Services.

“You have to give him credit for his perseverance, dedication and passion for that piece of property and its potential,” Richardson said.

With long sideburns and a soft-spoken demeanor, De Witt is a well-known figure at public hearings.

“I’ve always been polite, but I have been emphatic,” De Witt said.

His activism was sparked in 1993 during his 20th reunion at Santa Rosa High. People were complaining that development projects were ruining Santa Rosa’s natural areas, and “someone pointed out if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem,” De Witt said.

Those words hit home.

During the past 10 years, De Witt earned an undergraduate degree in Scandinavian studies and two master’s degrees at UC Berkeley. He now lives in Berkeley while working on post-graduate studies in environmental law and public policy.

The road there has hardly been conventional.

He spent four years in the Army, studied abroad in Denmark, held and left various jobs, started and left college programs, lived in his car and, for a stint, lived outside.

On Monday, De Witt stepped up to the podium before a Sonoma County oversight board managing former redevelopment funds. He took a four-hour bus ride from Berkeley to attend the meeting, talked about growing up in Roseland in the ’60s and encouraged the group to develop the long-vacant former Albertsons shopping center on Sebastopol Road.

He turned to the audienceand said, “I think there are some people supporting Roseland here. They should stand up and let it be known!”

A handful of people rose from their seats.

Two days later, De Witt was back in Santa Rosa to attend another hearing.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com.

Valerie Hanelt of Yorkville is the president of the Unity Club of Anderson Valley. The Unity Club sponsors the Anderson Valley Lending Library, which was established in 1953. It is located on the grounds of the Mendocino County Fair in Boonville. Jeff Kan Lee / PD

Former Santa Rosa teacher plays key volunteer roles in Anderson Valley

By GLENDA ANDERSON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Former Santa Rosa teacher Valerie Hanelt is as busy as ever since retiring almost five years ago to her family’s summer home in Yorkville.

And that’s the way she likes it.

“I’m a little hyperactive, a little compulsive,” said Hanelt, 64. “I was used to working so hard as a teacher. I can’t imagine just being dead in the water.”

“She’s very energetic, and that’s good,” said Susan Hopkins, a member of the Anderson Valley Unity Club, of which Hanelt currently is the president.

Hanelt is involved with a number of volunteer efforts in the Anderson Valley, which stretches from Yorkville to Navarro. Although it has only about 5,000 residents, they have a strong volunteer network. Retirees are pretty much expected to join efforts to keep its few services — from library to fire department — alive and healthy, Hanelt said.

She also sits on the board of Yorkville’s community services district, an unpaid elected position.

“I think those two jobs alone are very overwhelming,” Hopkins said.

The Unity Club, affiliated with the state and federal Federation of Women’s Clubs, has been taking care of business in the Anderson Valley since 1923. It sponsors the Anderson Valley Lending Library, established in 1953; the annual wildflower show; and a holiday bazaar. The money it raises goes to a wide variety of causes, from sending care packages to military troops to purchasing a canine partner for one of its resident sheriff’s deputies. Current projects include fundraising for a new firetruck.

The organization also is involved in an effort to save Hendy Woods State Park from closure. In 1963, the group helped get Hendy Woods into the state parks system.

Hanelt is modest, giving most of the organization’s credit to other members in the group. She said her duties as president include conducting meetings, creating an agenda and working on the budget. She also cooks for the bake sale and picks up book donations all year long for the annual book sale to support the community library.

The big events are overseen by other members, she said. “I am just one of the troopers.”

As an official on the five-member community services district board, she oversees a roughly $350,000 property-tax funded budget that supports the fire department, recreation programs for youth, a small airport and street lighting, among other things. The district also manages grant funds for other organizations.

In the spring, Hanelt volunteers to help save baby songbirds that become separated from their nests. She cares for and transports the birds to Veronica Bowers, who runs the Songbird Hospital in Sebastopol.

It’s something she began doing about 12 years ago, when she lived in Sonoma County and taught kindergarten and first grade.

“That’s kind of a passion,” Hanelt said.

In the winter, when her other jobs slow a bit, she heads to the Yorkville cemetery to document who’s buried there and what is on their headstones. She uploads it to findagrave.com.

“I’m a genealogist, and that’s an interest of mine,” she said.

Hanelt also spends time helping her husband work on their home, built by her parents in 1968.

Hanelt said she is considering joining another volunteer group, but it can’t interfere with another passion, her family. She has a son and daughter in Southern California, one a TV producer and the other a writer.

Hanelt said she enjoys volunteering and thinks anyone who can, should.

“Without the community pitching in and doing a huge percentage of the work, this valley really wouldn’t function as well as it does,” Hanelt said.

You can reach Staff Writer Glenda Anderson at 462-6473 or Glenda.anderson@pressdemocrat.com.

By ROBERT DIGITALE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Thirty years ago veterinarian Fred Groverman helped found the Sonoma County 4-H Foundation as a means of expanding opportunities for youth dressed in uniforms of white shirts and green cloth hats.

Fred Groverman

“I’m giving back because it worked very good for my children,” Groverman said.

The efforts to increase 4-H’s diversity are fledgling. But Groverman, a Petaluma resident, is credited with pushing to give more young people the opportunity to learn about leadership and agriculture.

“Fred’s just been an incredible individual,” said county Supervisor Efren Carrillo. “What’s he’s done is he’s really reached out to various leaders in the Latino community.”

Groverman, 78, recently suffered the loss of his wife of 54 years. Patricia Groverman died March 5 at the age of 74.

The couple have been described as the epitome of volunteer leadership in the farm community. In 2006 the county Farm Bureau inducted the Grovermans into its Agriculture Hall of Fame.

A Petaluma native, Petaluma High grad and graduate of the UC Davis veterinary school, Fred Groverman’s involvement in the community has gone far beyond his veterinary practice.

His past titles include Petaluma Hospital District president, Waugh school board member and county fair board member. He continues to raise Shropshire sheep, which have been on his family’s ranch since 1934, as well as to judge the breed in shows.

But the Grovermans’ legacy will certainly include 4-H.

They volunteered when their four children went through the program. Patricia Groverman served a quarter century as coordinator for the Sonoma-Marin Replacement Heifer Project, which gave 4-H youth the chance to raise and show dairy cows.

And Fred Groverman has been on the 4-H Foundation board for all its 30 years. The group helps raise funds and provides grants to the local clubs. And with the help of developer Hugh Codding, the foundation in 1994 built a facility in Rohnert Park for 4-H meetings and other gatherings.

“Fred is tireless,” said Stephanie Larson, county director of the UC Cooperative Extension. “He has dedicated a good portion of his life to educating youth.”

Susan Hansen, the foundation’s executive director, said “You can’t think of 4-H in Sonoma County without Dr. Fred Groverman. When there’s a need or an important event, he’s always been there for the program and the kids.”

While 4-H is often associated with showing lambs, hogs and other animals at the county fair, individual clubs can take on a variety of projects, from gardening to web design. It’s boosters said the organization is really about developing young people.

“We can teach these kids to be leaders in their community, no matter what project they’re in,” said Larson.

Groverman said he hopes 4-H in the years ahead will reflect the great diversity of the county’s youth.

“It gives them a direction to go to be successful,” he said. “It seems to me we don’t have enough organizations like that.”

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com.

Jaqueline Priess Kelsey tutors Rudy Garcia Lopez in English at the Rincon Valley branch of the Sonoma County Library as part of its literacy program on Thursday, March 8, 2012. (BETH SCHLANKER/ The Press Democrat)

Adult literacy program volunteer finds English-speaking skills open up ‘whole new world’ for students

By BRETT WILKISON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Once a week, Jaqueline Priess Kelsey settles into a quiet corner that doubles as her classroom at the Rincon Valley Library in east Santa Rosa.

A volunteer tutor with Sonoma County Library’s adult literacy program, Priess Kelsey’s lone student is a 51-year-old landscaper, Rudy Garcia Lopez, who came from Guadalajara, Mexico, to the United States more than 30 years ago.

The subject for each two-hour session is reading and writing in English, including grammar, rules for verb conjugation and tricks for improving reading comprehension.

But the aim of the free program is something larger: to break down a language barrier and support goals — personal and professional — that couldn’t be met otherwise.

In Garcia’s case, that meant a year of test preparation for U.S. citizenship, which he earned in January and quickly put to work, voting on a parcel-tax measure linked to hospital funding in his hometown of Sonoma.

“It’s a whole new world for him,” said Priess Kelsey, a 45-year-old mother of two who goes by “Jackie.”

An immigrant herself, having come to the United States from her native Brazil 22 years ago, Priest Kelsey also earned her U.S. citizenship recently.

She said her South American background, despite the difference with her native tongue of Portuguese, has helped her relate to Garcia and the experience of Spanish-speaking Latino immigrants.

“It’s important to know about their culture,” she said.

Before moving to Sonoma County in 2010, she held paid and volunteer teaching and interpreter positions in Philadelphia and Florida. Last year, she joined the county’s ranks of literacy tutors.

The library’s program is one of more than a half-dozen local efforts focused on improving English literacy in adults.

Currently, the county’s 145 tutors serve more than 155 students, with 60 more on waiting lists, largely in Santa Rosa and Sonoma.

The program was hit last year with a $40,000 state funding cut — effectively a 20 percent budget cut — and faces further reductions being considered by county library commissioners.

“Without our volunteers, there is no program,” said Julie Dabbs, the library’s adult literacy services coordinator. She singled out Priess Kelsey for her compassion and positive attitude.

“She really wants to empower others,” Dabbs said.

Back in the classroom at the Rincon Valley Library, Garcia is moving on to lessons aimed at helping him play a larger role in a family tequila import business.

“When I listen to him reading, being a little more fluent, it gives me goosebumps,” Priess Kelsey said. “Just to know that a year from now, this man might be able to run his own business … The whole experience brings me a lot of joy.”

Garcia, in turn, heaped praise on his tutor.

“Everything is coming together,” he said. “Without her, I never would have gotten anything. She’s a great, patient teacher.”

You can reach Staff Writer Brett Wilkison at 521-5295 or brett.wilkison@pressdemocrat.com.