Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Ross Phinney enjoys donning his work clothes and working on town vehicles as a volunteer.

Town recognizes volunteers

By Shari Kaplan

More than 100 Los Gatos volunteers were honored at a reception April 25 at the Neighborhood Center as a conclusion to National Volunteer Week, which recognizes and encourages volunteerism in all forms.

Among those donating time to the town is Ross Phinney, who spends three days a week working for Parks, Forestry and Maintenance. He says he enjoys being a "grease monkey" at the corporation yard because of his background as a machinist for the armed forces for several decades. His other duties include pick up and delivery of police and ranger vehicles that need to be repaired or refueled.

Joanne Crum caught the volunteer spirit when her husband passed away several years ago; she wanted to "get out and do something." She found two niches: Twice weekly, Crum shelves books and performs other tasks at the town library, and one morning per week she works in the Town Clerk's office doing word processing and data entry, organizing documents and "plowing through papers."

"This is something we can do together and not just sit around or work around the house," says Volunteer in Policing Barbara Odneal of herself and husband Jack. Barbara decorates the Los Gatos Police Department foyer for holidays and assists the office personnel with photocopying, filing and miscellaneous jobs. Jack helps in the office and drives police cars to and from the corporation yard. Both worked in several capacities at the LGPD's Haunted Forest last October and helped organize last weekend's rummage-sale fundraiser.

During 1995, 324 volunteers and 114 commissioners donated a total of 27,066 hours of service to the town. The estimated dollar value of that time is placed at $665,628.