100 Volunteers Lend a Hand to Nonprofits in Day of Caring

They painted walls, packed boxes with canned corn and did all they could to make the grimy delivery trucks shine again.

For four hours Saturday, about 100 Ventura County volunteers performed odd chores and helped spruce things up at five local social service agencies.

The flurry of helping hands was part of the United Way Ventura County’s annual Day of Caring, in which five of the nonprofit group’s 52 member agencies get a volunteer work crew for one day.

“These are projects that are always pushed to the bottom of the list,” said Susan Englund, a United Way vice president. “It’s a wonderful resource for the agency, and people can spend a few hours and truly make a difference.”

Most volunteers work for companies that are major fund-raisers for United Way, including Bank of America, General Motors and State Farm Insurance.

At the Camarillo Boys & Girls Club, Thousand Oaks resident Allen Lemasters balanced on a stepladder while painting a doorway in the club’s teen center.

Though he takes part in Day of Caring every year, Lemasters said it had more meaning for him this year after the terrorist attacks in New York, where workers continue to plow through rubble at the World Trade Center.

“I’d like to be able to help them, but I can’t,” said Lemasters, 50. “So you do what you can do, which is help people right here, where you live.”

Lemasters brought his 12-year-old daughter, Kylie, along, hoping to instill a spirit of volunteerism in her.

It appeared to have worked. “It feels good helping other people you don’t even know,” she said.

It would have cost $3,100 for professionals to paint the teen center--a brightly decorated room where hundreds of kids do homework, play pool or hang out after school each day, said Kimberly Curry, director of operations.

The remainder of the club was refurbished more than a year ago.

At Food Share in Oxnard, about 40 volunteers painted barrels holiday red, sanded rusted folding chairs used for bingo, painted a long-neglected warehouse wall and packaged thousands of unmarked cans of creamed corn.

Josh Robertson, 14, a freshman at Channel Islands High School, quickly earned a reputation among the volunteers as someone who could pack a box of corn in 20 seconds.

Josh said his aunt, Susan Guantt, asked him to help out.

“The only other thing I had to do [today] was laundry,” he said. “And I wanted to help people less fortunate than me who needed food.”

Sylvia Castro, who coordinates Bank of America’s volunteer network in Ventura County, had the evidence of her hard work all over her hands: red paint stains.

“Can you tell? I’ve been painting the barrels,” she said, laughing. “We’ve all had a really great time.”

Volunteers also went to the American Cancer Society in Simi Valley, the Cabrillo Economic Development Corp. in Ventura and United Way of Ventura County in Camarillo.