Selfless Giving, Wrapped Up in Anonymity

Most tune out the seemingly incessant clanging yet some do actually drop a few coins in the red kettles as they hurry away to lavish several hundred dollars worth of largess on friends and family. This year in West Virginia, a generous do-gooder tossed a thousand bucks (in very cold cash) into the pot.

This Yule tale is all the more remarkable because this wasn’t the first time Santa’s little nameless helper laid so much loot on an unsuspecting bell-ringer. The Morgantown Salvation Army reports this generous gesture has been repeated every Christmas for the past 25 years.

It’s fortunate that some investigative reporter hasn’t been able to ferret out our bashful benefactor’s actual identity. For so many truly charitable citizens, gift-wrapping their pecuniary packages in anonymity is part and parcel of the art of giving. Yet a wee bit of warbling about some of the unsung unselfish among us seems appropriate to the season.

Ventura County boasts more than 1,200 not-for-profit groups, and that number, according to the Ventura County Community Foundation, seems to grow daily. More than half of these organizations benefit children.

I’d like to introduce three volunteers who have not only spent considerably less than 15 minutes in the limelight but, like the thousands of folks who provide the actual power propelling community organizations, they are most reluctant to chat about themselves.

They also share the common experience of seeing a need and finding it next to impossible to do nothing about it. In addition, each mentions the existence of a spiritual component to their service, confessing a delight in dovetailing church ministry with secular projects.

In 1982, Gilbert Cuevas founded an organization that has honed the leadership skills of roughly 300 to 400 Ventura County high school and college students. Future Leaders of America encourages young Latinos to give back to their communities, not yet a time-honored tradition, according to Cuevas, in the Hispanic culture. The topic this former teacher and counselor really warms to, however, is bragging about his kids.

There’s Marcos Robles who seems to be the role model for the rest of the high schoolers; this Channel Islands senior has racked up 1,500 hours as a community volunteer. Vanesa Calderon refused to allow her single parent heritage to keep her from completing an education major at Cal Lutheran University. Jose Cornelio arrived in 1986, speaking not one word of English. This super-smart Cal State Northridge grad student solves calculus problems just for fun. A former student body president at Oxnard College, Cornelio is finishing up a teaching credential at the same time he serves as regional director for Future Leaders of America.

Last year, 3,857 child abuse investigations led to the removal of 226 children from Ventura County homes. Barry Boatman insists that his volunteer work with the Abuse Prevention Council was the best preparation he could make in taking in, via his four residential facilities, 24 of the most challenging adolescent addicts in the county. He’s convinced that there is a direct link between physical, sexual or emotional mistreatment and substance abuse. Boatman’s clients, however, are not just troubled kids from dysfunctional families; many have done jail time, “muled” drugs for their parents, run with gangs or supported themselves and their habits via stealing and prostitution. Despite inauspicious odds, his Children’s Alcohol Rehabilitation and Education (CARE) program has achieved a noteworthy 64% success rate.

Interface has assisted 183,000 families and children through its 26 programs, including a 24-hour crisis line, intervention for abused children and prevention services for high-risk youth.

After six months of retirement, former teacher Joyce Clark discovered her dream of plowing through the library got old pretty fast. She happily jettisoned her self-required reading list to work with Interface endeavors, the Safe Haven Shelter for abused women as well as the Big Brother / Big Sister programs. She simply bubbles over as she describes the authentic bond that develops between “bigs” and “littles” as well as the satisfaction she derives from watching women, who arrive with zero self-esteem, eventually get their lives together.

When asked what our trio would like to see in their Christmas stockings to help them to help others, they acknowledged that their community organizations could always use more funding and more friends.

William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, once wrote: “Children are not so much born into a home as they are spawned into the world like fish, with the results which we now see.” Cuevas, Boatman and Clark simply won’t allow that to happen in Ventura County.

Now, doesn’t that just ring your bell?