Main Street

Smith Brewick awarded YMCA's Legacy Award

By Mary Ann Cook

VOLUNTEER RECOGNIZED: If you had known Ervie Smith Brewick as a Brownie or Girl Scout you may have realized she was destined for a life of fundraising. Even at that tender age she was the one who brought in the most money as a cookie entrepreneur.

Last month the metropolitan YMCA awarded her the John D. Crummey Legacy Award, the highest honor given a volunteer and one which includes all eight Y branches in the metropolitan area. Berwick has been on the board for the past 15 years.

She served as chairman, the only woman in the 100-plus-year history of the local organization to do so. "I always enjoyed asking people for money for something I believe in. And I believe passionately in the Y programs," she says. "Plus there's my competitive streak."

Smith Brewick is a fundraising consultant, and manages the Valley Foundation and the Greater Bay Bancorp Foundation. She is vice chairman of the national board of the Association of Small Foundations. She also helped resuscitate the Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce.

Her YMCA commitment allows her to "help people who can't help themselves," she says. Her husband is David Brewick and her sons--all now grown were products of Los Gatos schools--are Kent, Kevin and Kyle Smith. All three were active in Y programs as youngsters.

BIRTHDAY GIRL: Georgia Travis, who lent her name and tireless efforts to founding a drop-in center for homeless women and children, spent her 92nd birthday lunching with the homeless at the center named for her. She brought and hosted her favorite midday meal for the assembled--hot dogs, potato salad and sliced tomatoes.

Legislators and op/ed page editors need to be forewarned: Travis this year mastered the computer and the Internet. She'll use more modern techniques from now on in her watchdog role. As witness in a recent letter in San Jose's daily newspaper.

In this letter, written on the computer, she warned that no election is humdrum or insignificant, citing Supreme Court appointments as one example in which the man sitting in the White House makes an immense difference. Travis was a Fulbright professor and teacher, as well as continuing to be a dedicated social activist.

The AAUW's Committee on Homeless Women and Children (of which she was a member) was the original impetus of the Georgia Travis drop-in center in San Jose. There homeless women can get a meal, do their laundry, learn computer skills and launch their search for a job. Travis lives at the Meadows, and is described as in the Eleanor Roosevelt activist mold.

REUNION: The Weltz Family has held a reunion--off and on--since 1930. But since 1946 the reunion has been a steady yearly affair. For the past 15 years it's been held at Vasona. Ed Carman of Carman Nursery is our informant here.

His mother was a Weltz, so that puts him right in the thick of things. Carman made an 8-foot-long family tree for the occasion, with computer work done by his sister, which showed in graphic detail how everyone fit into the family line.

"All the aunts and uncles are gone now," Carman says. "Now it's pretty much all cousins." In 1988 the family held a 100th anniversary reunion of the grandparents' marriage that started the local lineage rolling. That event drew some 120-150 celebrants.

Carman's culinary contributions to the yearly outing: baked beans and potato cakes, both adapted from his mother's kitchen.

WOMAN OF YEAR: Ruth Kirk, general manager of Summitpointe Golf Club and interim manager of Santa Clara Golf & Tennis club, was named a candidate for Woman of the Year by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Kirk, a native Los Gatan, raised the most money--$25,000--for the society's recent auction. When working in Orange County, Kirk won the title PGA Merchandiser of the Year for four consecutive years.

Under her management, the Shandin Hills Golf Club in San Bernadino was named the Inland Empires Best Course in 1997. She has worked at Tustin Ranch, Westin Mission Hills and Gary Player golf courses. A volunteer with her parish youth ministry group, she is the sixth of eight children and lives in San Jose.

Other W-o-Y candidates at the auction/dinner were Michelle Fabbrini, owner of the home-based Discovery Toys, and Paulette Perfumo, vice president of Ohlone College.

FOND FAREWELL: Friends of the Los Gatos Library will bid a fond and reluctant goodbye to Gloria Grimes, library director, with a tea in her honor to be held at Lisa's Tea Room on July 26. Grimes is relocating to Oregon, much to the chagrin of the Friends.

Friends' board members were much impressed with GG's skills from Day One of her all-too-brief tenure in the post. In particular, her navigational abilities for steering the town toward a new library that will meet national standards.

JULY XMAS: Discovery House will hold a "Christmas in July" sale July 21 and 22, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and July 23, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Sales of cards, home and tree decorations will benefit the American Cancer Society.

 

 

Police Report

Birds know a plastic owl when they see one

District surveys high schools' parents and students and garner positive results

Stacy Marcinko and J.J. Taughinbaugh wed

Picture from the Past

Sports Briefs

Derek Thomas wins pitchers' duel

Jack, Ripp to host three summer volleyball camps

11-year-old all-stars in sectionals

Samuels to host Camp with Pros