Volunteering as a way of life

For some people, volunteering has to fit into a busy life. For others, volunteering is their way of life.

For some, it's a lifelong commitment, perhaps punctuated with more or less active periods. Bob Solotar, for example, first became involved with the Sierra Club while in high school "when a few of my friends and I decided to get active in environmental issues, and we found a freeway to fight in San Bruno in the early '70s". That involvement ended when Bob left for college, but a few years later, upon his return, he was drawn in again as a hike leader and has been involved in the Chapter ever since. Today, in addition to a regular job, Bob is vice-chair of the Activities Committee, chair of the Conservation Committee, a member of the Chapter Executive Committee, and a frequent hike leader. He's also led hikes for Greenbelt Alliance and the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council, and when he has had the time (not currently) Bob enjoyed volunteering for the Berkeley Humane Society, working with the cats to socialize them and help them get adopted.

Dick Schneider has been involved with the Sierra Club since 1974. He has served as a member and as chair of numerous Chapter and Sierra Club national committees. His activism took a tremendous leap in 2000, when, as Chapter conservation chair, he got involved in drafting and campaigning for the initiative that established Alameda County's Urban Growth Boundary. For a year and a half he found himself volunteering almost full-time, and he still puts much of his time into related land-use issues. He also serves on the boards for Californians for Population Stabilization, the Transportation and Land Use Coalition, and the Head-Royce School (where his children went to school). As with many volunteers, Dick's involvement in environmental issues comes from "a desire to protect the natural world". But his other activities bring rewards too, from "feeling connected" to increasing his "understanding about how things really work and how issues are decided". Like many of the Club's most dedicated volunteers, Dick has had to figure out how, at least occasionally, to say "no" and to draw limits. As Dick put it, "The issues are so compelling, and the problems seem imminent, but time is limited, and one has other things to do in life too."

Judy Kunofsky shows a different life pattern. From being a volunteer with Zero Population Growth (becoming national president from 1979 to 1980), she moved to Sierra Club's national staff, working from 1974 - 1984, first on population stabilization, then adding the urban environment, then toxics, eventually broadening her activities to include the full range of Club issues. She continued volunteer work too, for instance as a board member of the East Bay League of Conservation Voters. When she left the Sierra Club to work for another environmental organization, she took a one-year break from the Club and then began volunteering with the Club's national Population Committee and has been active on various Club national committees ever since. She is now finishing six years on the Conservation Governance Committee, which oversees all the Club's advocacy and political work. Judy skipped the local-chapter involvement that virtually all national volunteer leaders have, and because she had a small child, she picked volunteer roles that could be done from home or by phone during the day so that they wouldn't interfere with her family life. Judy now works as a fundraising consultant for non-profit organizations and is a co-founder of KlezCalifornia, a Bay Area organization that promotes Yiddish culture and klezmer music. With this variety of connections, it is appropriate that she is now beginning her second round of service on the Club's Environmental Partnerships Committee, which oversees the Club's outreach to hunters, anglers, people of faith, union members, and other constituencies that share some of our conservation concerns (she was the first chair of this committee when it began in 2003). In talking about the power of reaching out and having Sierra Club members involved in other organizations too, Judy points out that, "Most Club volunteers don't know much about the non-Club side of other activists' lives. You can work with someone for years and still not know what else they are involved in. Encouraging people in the Club to have all parts of their life visible enables us to make better connections with other constituencies that should (and usually do) care about the environment - that makes us stronger. It also helps us see each other as full human beings, not just individuals useful for our cause, and that's a better way to live."

For a growing group of volunteers (baby boomers, are you listening?), the volunteering begins in earnest at retirement. Take Yvonne Steffen, who moved to El Cerrito from Vacaville in 2003 after retiring and losing her husband. "I came to be closer to my children and for the lifestyle - opera, plays, foreign films, conferences - and other opportunities to stimulate my brain." She doesn't just take things in, however, but she gives of herself to make a difference. Yvonne arrives at the Chapter office every Thursday morning and does whatever is needed - from data input to proofreading the Yodeler to painting office shelves. But Yvonne doesn't stop there; she ushers at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, participates on the board of the local ACLU, serves as treasurer of the East Bay for Democracy Group, and is membership chair for the El Cerrito Democratic Club. "I have been so well accepted by groups even though I was a newcomer to the area," Yvonne declared. Given all that she has to offer, it's no wonder that so many Bay Area organizations want to include her.

The champion of full-time retirement volunteers must be Maggie Pratley. For years she volunteered each morning of the week at a different spot, including a skilled nursing facility, the Berkeley Symphony, Friends of the Berkeley Library, and the Bay Chapter Office. This must not have been enough, though, for she left us a couple of years ago to go off to Thailand for her third stint in the Peace Corps. Rumor has it that she is returning, and we hope to have her industrious enthusiasm and good sense back here.

Then there's Kitty McClean. "My Sierra Club involvement came from the past, from much further back in my life." Kitty was brought up in the country and then lived in cities for most of her life. "I joined the Sierra Club back in 1965, while living in the slums of Chicago. I wanted to keep tabs on what was happening in beautiful areas." She calls herself a "theoretician", interested in the funding of public institutions, but after moving to Berkeley, she started a very practical involvement in local politics, especially on school issues and finance. But she had always "secretly said" that when she retired she would volunteer with the Sierra Club, and that she did. "I wanted to do something that would make a tiny difference in conservation," but Kitty's involvement has been far from "tiny". She started out on the East Bay Public Lands Committee (where she is still active) and made herself knowledgeable on local park issues. As happens with so many people who start out volunteering in one particular issue area, she became involved in the general management of the whole chapter and served on the Chapter Executive Committee for seven years. Now she is on the Executive Committee of the Northern Alameda County Group. Kitty offers an enticing reminder as to why it's so important to volunteer: "Many people go on hikes to beautiful places like Mount Diablo and don't realize that somebody had to save the areas that are here, and that it took a lot of scrappy political work and referendums to save them. I didn't realize it for a long time, nor did I understand that it starts at the ground level and in our local committees and goes up to the national level."

Jean King is another who understands. Jean started volunteering when she was young, and has become increasingly active as family obligations lightened. Jean moved to Livermore for a job at Sandia National Laboratories, got married, started a family, and had her first volunteer involvements with the League of Women Voters and the PTA. But once she realized how the "Livermore Valley was growing like mad," her interest in the political landscape grew, and when she no longer had PTA meetings to attend, her involvement in politics and land-use issues flourished, and so did her involvement in music and the arts. Today, in addition to being a key figure in land-use issues in the Livermore Valley, Jean is an appointed member of Livermore's Commission for the Arts, serves on the boards of the Livermore-Amador Symphony Association, Friends of the Vineyards, Tri-Valley Conservancy (a land trust), and Livermore Cultural Arts Council, and teaches math at Las Positas Community College. When asked her thoughts about volunteering as a way of life, she laughed and said, "There's no amount of money that would pay me to do the work I do. I would never do it for money. I do it because I really believe in the cause, and it's rewarding in itself."

Marilyn Hope Smulyan