Volunteers Receive Golden Rule Awards

Louie Cano was vacuuming a building at De Anza Park when he first met Nick Heukrodt.

“He said, ‘Could I help you?’ ” Cano, a maintenance supervisor for the Calabasas Department of Recreation, recalled the 13-year-old asked. Nick, who has Down syndrome, proved to be a hard-working volunteer with a good sense of humor who cleaned windows, picked up trash and handed out fliers at the park.

On Wednesday at the Airtel Plaza Hotel, Cano was with Nick and the Heukrodt family when the boy won the Golden Rule Award in the youth category.

The award is presented annually by the Volunteer Center of the Assistance League of Southern California and JCPenney to honor outstanding volunteers in four categories.

Nick started volunteering an hour a day three times a week in the fall as part of a Las Virgenes Unified School District program to build independence and self-confidence, his father, Allan, said.

Winning a Golden Rule Award in the adult category was Ruben Hernandez, founder and president of the Unification of Disabled Latin Americans, a mid-Wilshire-based agency. Hernandez was blinded 24 years ago when he was shot in the head by gang members.

“It really opened my sight in a more panoramic way,” Hernandez said. “I turned around and saw that there were lots of needs out there.”

Winning a Golden Rule Award in the education category was Frank Altadonna, a volunteer in the speakers’ bureau of the Catalyst Foundation for AIDS Awareness who works with teenagers at Challenger Memorial Youth Center in Lancaster.

In the groups category, the award went to the Polio Survivors Foundation in Reseda.

All the winners get a $1,000 donation for the agency they work for and a crystal trophy.