September 2009 Archives

Two Rock Coast Guard station provides much-needed mentors for kids in need at Roseland Elementary

BY DEREK J. MOORE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Responding to maritime emergencies and helping kids with their reading assignments present similar challenges.
They require attention to detail, for one thing, and an unselfish desire to help someone in need.
The ultimate payoff is saving a life, either literally or in the sense of plucking a kid from the wrong path and onto the road to success.
The staff at the Two Rock Coast Guard station near Petaluma have proven themselves capable of handling such distress calls, and for the 12th year, are partnering with Roseland Elementary School to help tutor students.
 

Sebastopol police volunteer Dan Potts fills a need in the community -- and his heart

BY MIKE McCOY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

For seven years, Dan Potts would leave his job running Sawyer's News in downtown Santa Rosa to put in 20 hours a week chalking tires, directing traffic, hosting neighborhood meetings and pretending to be a thief.

It was all in a week's work as a member of Santa Rosa's Volunteers in Police Services program.

One day he'd be marking tires of those who violated the city's 72-hour parking limit, redirecting traffic at accident and crime scenes, hosting one of 100 Neighborhood Watch meetings or do play-acting at the Santa Rosa Junior College Police Academy to test how cadets would react to a real-life situation.

"It was a personal need," Potts says of his commitment to volunteer work. 

Elly Cohen had an active business career in the Bay Area for more than 40 years, working as a savings and loan executive and construction company manager.
Now retired and living on her family's property in Santa Rosa, Cohen, 66, said she is "busier than I have ever been."
"I've never been able to cut down," she said, stuffing tickets for the Jewish Film Festival 2009 into envelopes at the Sonoma County office of the Jewish Community Center on Farmers Lane.
Cohen, a gray-haired grandmother, tutors students in religious studies at Santa Rosa's Congregation Shomrei Torah and works part-time as administrator of a Santa Rosa-based nonprofit, Remember Us, which connects Jewish children preparing for bar or bat mitzvah with children lost in the Holocaust.

For 3 decades, Lea Eastin has volunteered at Palm Drive Hospital

Three decades ago, Lea Eastin was looking for a place to volunteer in Sebastopol. Her friend Millie Wild invited her to join the Palm Drive Hospital Auxiliary.

Thirty years later, Eastin still volunteers once a week at the hospital, delivering lunches to patients, listening to their stories or just bringing them a cup of tea.

"I feel that I'm doing a service to the community, and I really enjoy it," said Eastin, who has 14 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

Palm Drive, a publicly owned hospital, gets community support through parcel taxes and through donations raised by the Palm Drive Health Care Foundation.