Volunteers Really Get Down and Dirty to Show They Care

The Orange County high-rise where Clint Faltermayer works as a bank vice president is a long way from the graffiti-marred warehouse in Watts where he pulled weeds Saturday.

“It’s a good way to get in touch with people who are struggling,” Faltermayer said. “You realize how lucky some people are and how unlucky other people are.”

He was one of about 2,000 volunteers dispatched Saturday to social service agencies throughout Los Angeles for the United Way’s annual Day of Caring. In turn, the agencies sent them out to pull weeds and wield mops, brooms and paintbrushes.

The United Way, the umbrella fund-raiser for a variety of charities and social service groups, recruits volunteers from dozens of local companies for the annual event.

“This is a tangible way for people to express themselves and to see where their contributions go,” said Joe Haggerty, president of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

Faltermayer was part of a crew of about 85 volunteers preparing a Los Angeles Regional Food Bank distribution center for a planned October opening. Many of the center’s workers will come from Los Angeles County’s welfare-to-work program or from Workfare, the program for General Relief recipients who work for their benefits, said Art Pina, the food bank’s volunteer manager.

Inside the building, Lani Bunag, an administrative assistant, swept up discarded bits of drywall in the center’s future offices; nearby, in clouds of drywall dust, the children of other volunteers romped. “It’s a lot of fun,” Bunag said. “I’ve done it for the past three years.”

Bunag thought she would be packing groceries at the food bank’s other distribution center. “I thought, ‘OK, cool. I won’t have to sweat this year.’ But I’m still basically getting dirty.”

The volunteers rose early on their day off. By 8 a.m. the football field at Belmont High School just west of downtown was filled with people in matching blue-lettered T-shirts waiting to board yellow buses bound for work sites all over the county.

Some stayed behind to fix up the school. A crew of IBM workers attacked the overgrown trees and weeds near the stadium with pruning shears and other tools. They admitted to a lack of horticultural experience. Nonetheless, they were enthusiastic.

“What do I do with the hoe?” one woman asked. Amid her co-workers’ laughter, another said, “She probably lives in an apartment.”

Advertising account executive Malu Santamaria sponged dirt off a wall, preparing it for painting. “I’ve been fortunate in my life, so I want to do something to help,” she said. “I don’t have time to go out and seek something, so if the opportunity comes up, I’m there.”

Near the school’s auditorium, Eladio Chavez, an art teacher from Woodrow Wilson High School, and a few aspiring artists filled in ‘the painted skeleton of a mural.

The piece depicted different-colored hands applying glue and paint to the Earth.

Chavez said the message of the mural was “basically multicultural. We need to get together to put the world together. Working together as a team--that’s the theme of this whole project.”