A Close- Up Look At People Who Matter : Volunteering Grows Into a Full-Time Job

Where President George Bush once praised America’s volunteers as a “thousand points of light,” Doris Bianchini of Seminole Springs seems to be providing plenty of illumination all by herself.

If the past two years are any indication, she will again easily earn membership in the 1996 “Inner Circle 1,000 Hours Club” at the Goebel Senior Center in Thousand Oaks through its Retired Senior Volunteer Program.

A strong supporter of the Manna Conejo Valley Food Bank, she organizes a “Toys for Manna” drive twice yearly, collecting items for the children of families who use the food bank.

Bianchini is the planner, researcher and tour guide for seniors at the Agoura Hills Recreation Center. In addition to local day trips each month, on New Year’s Day she takes two busloads of folks from the center to the Rose Parade, but not before preparing and serving them a continental breakfast at 5 a.m. She also is planning a “Fall of Foliage” October tour through her native New England.

And whether on a bus or plane--among the few places she can be found sitting still--chances are Bianchini will be working on one of the 150 lap robes or 30 pairs of slippers she and her Tuesday knitting-class students produce each year for distribution to nursing homes and hospitals.

Once, while helping a nephew with a fund-raiser for Sequoyah School in Pasadena, she ended up making 7,000 Italian cookies called pizelles, two at a time in a waffle iron-like device, during a three-month period.

Even the oleanders and junipers lining the lanes of the Seminole Springs Mobile Home Park on Mulholland Highway where she and her husband live are the result of a past garden club project spearheaded by Bianchini.

“I don’t waste any time,” she said matter-of-factly. “If you don’t keep busy, you’ll rot away.”

Volunteering has traditionally been a full-time proposition for her, starting with a three-month Red Cross course she took during World War II. She was soon helping out 40 hours a week at Quincy, Mass., area hospitals.

Along the way were the births of a son and daughter, followed by a move to Encino in 1951, the settling of 13 groups of family and friends who followed them west and stayed with them for anywhere from a week to a year. Then came some office jobs and, with her children grown, full immersion once again in volunteering.

She said credit for her many hours of involvement should go to her husband of 60 years, Clement Bianchini, a retired meat cutter. He assists her on some projects and does all the housework, thus giving her the time to volunteer.

“He’s my support and backbone for everything I do,” she said.

Bianchini has little time for “complainers and negative people.”

“We’re all here to help one another,” she said, crediting her large family, hardy northeastern roots and Catholic upbringing for her willingness to “assume responsibility” for the well being of others.

Avid travelers, she and her husband also believe in not postponing the things they want to do.

“No matter how long life is, it’s very short . . . it’s over in a wink,” she said. “We are very blessed. We have a lifetime of wonderful memories.”

Still Bianchini doesn’t spend much time philosophizing when there are more practical matters at hand.

“Yarn,” she entreated a recent visitor. “I need yarn in any form, shape or color.”

Personal Best is a weekly profile of an ordinary person who does extraordinary things. Please send suggestions on prospective candidates to Personal Best, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311.