Volunteers Lend Hand to Service Agencies : Philanthropy: About 1,000 pitch in on United Way Community Care Day. Four work areas are added this year, including the Santa Clarita Valley.

There she was, Paula Grace-Watkins, a corporate vice president, cheerfully shoveling unidentifiable black goop from the street gutter near the Maud Booth Family Center, which serves 1,000 children in the low-income neighborhood surrounding it.

A couple of miles away, at the Activities for Retarded Children complex, insurance claims adjuster Jenna Lam was trying to mop up grease and oil residue from a parking garage floor.

The two women were among 1,000 volunteers who donated their Saturday morning to spruce up health and social service agencies in the San Fernando Valley at the fifth annual United Way Community Care Day. Four more work areas were added in Los Angeles County this year, including the Santa Clarita Valley.

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Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, speaking at a breakfast rally for Valley volunteers in the Los Angeles Times Valley Edition parking lot, said that when he was a United Way board member, he learned the value of “getting people to pitch in” when money is tight.

Also Saturday, an unrelated project, Public Lands Appreciation Day, attracted more than 400 volunteers to the Tujunga and Arroyo Seco ranger districts in the Angeles National Forest, said media coordinator Wendolyn Young. Volunteers painted picnic tables, picked up litter, built a barbecue pit and repaired trails, among other chores. It was the second year for the event, which was held at 18 sites in 15 states.

Back in the Valley, Candice Stein of North Hills was leaving the breakfast rally for Pacoima Elementary School, hoping “to do some gardening,” she said. Last year, she helped to plant trees at another school.

Many of the volunteers were recruited by their employers, including such firms as Cigna Corp., 20th Century Insurance, ARCO, and Great Western Bank.

About 30 volunteers spent the morning at Activities for Retarded Children (ARC) on Whitsett Avenue in North Hollywood. The 29-year-old charity recently acquired an apartment building where organizers hope to teach developmentally disabled young adults how to live on their own, said Kenneth Jaggers, an ARC official.

“We’ve got paint, cleaning supplies and more donated shelves than we really need,” said Dixie Hendrikson, executive director of ARC, in briefing the volunteers. “If anybody runs out of work, we’ve always got shelves to assemble,” she said good-naturedly.

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Expressing her thanks, Hendrikson said, “You’re helping out with the things that we’ve been putting off.”

One of those jobs was spray-painting more than a dozen pieces of outdoor patio furniture. “Wooooh,” said volunteer Amy Baker, stepping away from the patio to escape the fumes for a while. She said she signed up for the patio detail because it was something her 8-year-old son, Austin, could take part in.

Just then, someone brought out some disposable paper masks for the painters to wear. “That’s what we need,” said one.

A garage door was being painted by legal secretary Kathy Barry and her husband, Andy, a sales executive. They soon were joined by Michele Delong of Burbank, who comes to the ARC house for its activities and trips.

“I love to paint,” said Delong, 25, with brush in hand.

About 30 other people helped out at the Maud Booth Family Center, where the Volunteers of America operate one of the organization’s two parent-child centers in Los Angeles and one of its five preschool Head Start programs in the Valley.

While Grace-Watkins shoveled out gutters and helped to paint a wall, her husband, William Watkins, a Cal State Northridge administrator, supervised youngsters who helped him paint two small offices.

One of the youngest helpers at the Maud Booth center was Teddy of Reseda, who held up four fingers when asked his age.

Standing with his dad, who was working in the center’s garden, Teddy volunteered some advice: “We’re going to have to take a shower after all this.”