Shriver Uses Holiday to Dig In and Help Out

The state’s first lady, Maria Shriver, urged Californians to volunteer and take on community service as she observed Martin Luther King Day in Orange County on Monday.

Shriver, whose father, Sargent Shriver, was the first director of the Peace Corps, added star power to the Garden Grove event at the Community Action Partnership of Orange County, where children and adults spent the day packing food boxes.

“I thank each and every one of you,” she said.

“You could have been at the beach, at a playground or just hanging around. But you made a choice to come here and help other people.... You are my heroes.”

Shriver, who was accompanied by daughter Christina Schwarzenegger, 13, helped observe the 10th anniversary of the holiday as a day of service.

She asked volunteers to continue their community service beyond the holiday and to get others to volunteer.

“You can do anything,” she said.

“You can clean a beach, you can pack food, and not just today, but once a week, or every day if that’s possible.”

Shriver comes from a family with a legacy in community service.

Her father had a record of public service and innovation that began with the Peace Corps and helped foster organizations such as Head Start, VISTA, Job Corps, Community Action, Upward Bound, Foster Grandparents and Legal Services for the Poor.

Her mother, Eunice, and father founded the Special Olympics in 1968.

Spotting a photograph of her father in an office, she motioned for her daughter and told her, “Look, it’s your grandfather. He started organizations like this.”

Monday’s event was organized by the Community Action Partnership, the Volunteer Center of Orange County, Black Chamber of Commerce of Orange County, and Alpha Phi Alpha, an African American service fraternity of which King had been a member.

Shriver, in jeans and a top with “California” on it, toured the food bank, said hello to volunteers, posed for pictures and boxed food.

“We’re glad to have her here today,” said Clarence “Buddy” Ray, the facility’s executive director.

“Her father is an icon for community action.”

The volunteers packed canned meat and vegetables, pasta and other food into 40-pound boxes that were to be distributed to needy families, senior citizens and children in the county, Ray said.

Volunteer Marne Glass, with the service group OC Links, took a picture with Shri- ver and other Links members.

“It was great of her to come,” she said.

Cynthia Meyra, 23, another volunteer, brought nearly two dozen youths from the Garden Grove Boys and Girls Club who packed food boxes assembly-line style.

Shriver’s presence, Meyra said, gave the youths a boost.

“When someone like the governor’s wife comes here, it makes what they’re doing even more important,” Meyra said.

Shriver talked to Liesel Stamm, 21, a VISTA member and recent UC Irvine philosophy graduate, after the first lady noticed Stamm’s T-shirt with an AmeriCorps patch, a national service organization.

“She just wanted to say hello, and she was interested in AmeriCorps and what I was doing in public service as a VISTA volunteer,” Stamm said.

Stamm and others in her VISTA program are spending a year working for the Volunteer Center of Orange County.

Before departing, Shriver encouraged the young volunteers to continue serving their communities and offered a quote from Mohandas K. Gandhi.

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service,” she told them.