Volunteers Give Back
Park’s Ranger
Matt King knows how to get creative. He was named 2024 Volunteer of the Year by the city’s Department of Youth, Parks, & Community Enrichment, thanks to his creative efforts to revitalize William Chorley Park in South Sacramento.
“Even the parks department didn’t want to go there,” King says. “It had been ignored for about 10 years. The grass was 7-feet high. There was graffiti all over the bathroom. There were feces and needles all over the playground, drug and gang activity. It was bad and just got worse.”
A longtime South Sac resident, King took matters into his own hands after he saw a post on Nextdoor lamenting the state of the park. He realized uplifting this asset in his neighborhood would align with his own “journey to uplift.”
Service Plan
It took Jay Walker two years to lose his job, marriage, house and car. He called it a run of bad luck.
Problems began when the Army veteran found himself miles from home. After 18 years of sobriety, he went on a “weeklong drunk,” he says, before securing a shelter bed in North Sacramento.
The shelter was good for a cot and meals, but not much else.
“At 6 a.m. during the weekdays, they’d kick you out,” Walker says. “We all used to go down to Loaves & Fishes to hang out.”
Coming Back
What happens when a child in foster care reaches 18 and “ages out” of the system?
“Far too often, kids lose where they live when they age out,” Suzanne Guinn says. “My good friend spent his whole childhood in foster care, got bounced around a lot, and on his 18th birthday became homeless. He didn’t understand that was coming. Sometimes it’s a surprise to the children.”
Guinn says 25% of foster care kids experience homelessness after aging out.
“It’s hard enough to be 18,” she says. “The decisions you have to make and things you have to do to become adult are challenging enough, but especially if don’t have parents to support you. It’s overwhelming. AcademySTAY does all of that.”
Song In Her Heart
Laura Lofgren can’t stop lending her voice to the Sacramento Master Singers. As the group opens its 41st season, Lofgren sings alto and serves as board president.
Her relationship with the nonprofit choir dates from 1990, when Lofgren and husband John auditioned to sing. One year later, they joined the board, Laura as choral liaison and secretary, John as vice president.
“It’s not just a choir, it’s more like an extended family,” says Lofgren, who spent 37 years in education before retiring from the Twin Rivers Unified School District in June. “We all truly care for each other.”
Playing For Keeps
If you’re looking for Jonathan Lum, check the soccer pitch.
As vice president of the Sacramento Soccer Alliance, Lum says he has “no specific duties” for the nonprofit that provides community-based competitive soccer to area youth.
No specific duties mean he really does everything.
All In
What does “accessible” really mean? A diverse group of theater artists have the answer.
“It’s not just ramps and handrails,” says Jim Brown, a longtime volunteer with Short Center Repertory, a public outreach program of the Developmental Disabilities Service Organization.
“In this instance, accessible refers to the audience experience, as well as the performers’ experience,” he says. “Getting involved with this has really made me so aware of the ways in which we seldom accommodate people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind and low vision.”
