Volunteers Give Back
Born To Give
Laini Golden always wanted to help people.
As a high school student in San Antonio, she joined every service club she could find. Her youth group helped blind people shop for groceries. She played with kids at orphanages.
“I knew I wanted to help people in the community,” Golden says. “I’ve always had this desire to try to connect on whatever level.”
Golden has given back for decades. As a licensed clinical social worker in Sacramento, she’s done therapy with children in schools, hospitals and outpatient facilities. Now she works with adults to help them reconnect with their inner voice.
Fly High
Those people with fishing gear outside the Conzelmann Community Center at Howe Park aren’t lost.
They’re most likely members of California Fly Fishers Unlimited practicing casting before their monthly meeting.
“Our audience wants to learn—can they do it, can they get help? That’s an area we excel in,” says Paul Wisheropp, a member since 2011. “We focus on conservation, education and outreach.”
Since 1962, Fly Fishers Unlimited has promoted fly fishing and encouraged conservation of the state’s fisheries, aquatic resources and watersheds. The group offers classes, outings, socials and meetings to serve amateurs and aficionados.
Treasure Hunter
If you’ve ever lost something on the American River, Karl Bly can help find it.
The kayaker and founder of American River Lost & Found made it his mission to reunite owners with items lost in the currents. It’s his obsession.
“My dad introduced me to the river,” Bly says. “He would go out diving and I would kayak or canoe above him and follow his bubbles around. By the time I was 6 or 7 years old, I could paddle a boat.
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.”
