Volunteer honored for years of service

BURBANK ? The year 1944 was a big one for Mary Alice O’Connor. She had married Disney animator Kendall O’Connor and relocated with him to Burbank, where the Walt Disney Co. had set up shop.

As it turned out, 1944 was also a big year for Burbank.

Since her arrival more than 60 years ago, O’Connor forged such a generous record of volunteerism and public service that the City Council declared May 9 “Mary Alice O’Connor Day,” and renamed the planned Buena Vista Family Center in her honor.

Her career as a volunteer began during World War II. Working in public relations for the American Red Cross, she organized a staff of 60 people, trekking through Burbank and the San Fernando Valley, gathering donations for care packages to ship to local service members overseas.

O’Connor was the first woman on the boards of Burbank Community Hospital and Providence St. Joseph’s Medical Center, which was founded just about the same time she arrived in Burbank.

She was also a founding member on the board of the Family Services Agency, Burbank’s second oldest nonprofit group.

With the birth of O’Connor’s children, John and J.P., she became an active parent, lending her time to the Girl Scouts, the Boy Scouts and the PTA, where she logged more than 16 years of service. O’Connor said she preferred serving as vice president over president of the PTA because it gave her more of an opportunity to plan programs, bring in speakers and organize activities.

Among her most proud contributions to Burbank is her part in resurrecting the Starlight Bowl, an idea she posed to now City Manager Mary Alvord while O’Connor was working with the Burbank symphony.

“To be a volunteer I find that you have so many great opportunities to do things ? if you go about it graciously,” she said.

And in appreciation of O’Connor’s own graciousness, a standing-room-only crowd packed into council chambers on Tuesday to pay tribute to a selfless and abundant career.

“There are certain people who stand above the crowd for their true spirit of volunteerism,” Mayor Todd Campbell said. “And Mary Alice O’Connor is one of those people.”