Whether or not it is establishing neighborhood vacation traditions or boosting instructional packages to make them extra inclusive, the volunteer efforts of this 12 months’s seven Avenidas Lifetimes of Achievement honorees helped make our neighborhoods and communities extra welcoming locations to dwell.
For the higher a part of three-plus a long time, Gary and Jeff Dunker, Annette Glanckopf, Barbara Gross, LaDoris Hazzard Cordell and Judy and George Marcus have given their time and power to enhance the lives of these of their communities and past.
These volunteers have served on — and in lots of instances have helped launch — neighborhood associations, group boards and academic foundations and as heads of nonprofits. Together with their many different hands-on efforts, they’ve distributed meals, labored behind the scenes prepping for and cleansing up after public occasions, assisted kids with homework and offered area for nonprofits to satisfy.
To honor them, the senior-serving nonprofit Avenidas and the Palo Alto Weekly will host a particular backyard social gathering at a neighborhood dwelling on Sunday, Might 15. Tickets for this public occasion are $85, with proceeds benefiting Avenidas’ packages for older adults all through the world. Tickets embody appetizers, wine and music.
For tickets and extra info, go to avenidas.org.
Learn on for profiles of every honoree:
Gary and Jeff Dunker have devoted years to enriching the lives of these younger and outdated. Gary, a longtime Palo Alto elementary college instructor, launched a meals distribution program much like Meals on Wheels for households at Duveneck Elementary Faculty and, after retiring, volunteered for greater than 5 years in after-school homework packages at faculties in Palo Alto and East Palo Alto. Jeff, a lifelong athlete who was named All-American Monitor and Subject in shot put at Cal Poly in 1969, spent his early profession educating bodily schooling to native kids by means of the Palo Alto college district’s Enrichment Crew.
Collectively, Jeff and Gary volunteer at Trinity Church in Menlo Park, the place Gary serves as fee chair of the month-to-month luncheon collection and Jeff assists with the occasion.
Annette Glanckopf has spent a long time bringing collectively neighbors and neighborhoods all through Palo Alto. As chairperson of the Midtown Residents Affiliation, she was instrumental in restoring Scott Meadows in Greer Park, putting in 5 public artwork tasks within the neighborhood and reviving the Midtown Procuring District by pushing for ground-floor retail.
Glanckopf co-founded Palo Alto Neighborhoods (PAN), a networking group that connects neighbors and neighborhoods.
Barbara Gross, a longtime resident of Portola Valley, has used her enterprise ventures to help native nonprofits.
Whereas normal supervisor of the Backyard Courtroom Lodge for 15 years, she hosted quite a few charitable occasions on the Palo Alto venue.
She has been an instrumental member of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce, serving on the group’s board of administrators, authorities motion council and downtown advertising committee.
She helped kind the Palo Alto Downtown Enterprise and Skilled Affiliation and was amongst those that orchestrated the formation of a public-private partnership between the affiliation and metropolis to renovate Lytton Plaza.
LaDoris Hazzard Cordell has spent a lot of her life creating change: She was the primary lawyer to open a non-public legislation observe in East Palo Alto and in 1982, she grew to become the primary African American feminine choose in northern California. She was later elected to the Superior Courtroom of Santa Clara County.
After serving 19 years, Cordell retired from the bench and joined Stanford College as vice provost and particular counselor to the president for campus relations.
Judy and George Marcus, co-owners of Kokkari Restaurant in San Francisco and Evvia in Palo Alto, are identified for his or her a long time of civic and philanthropic work, which has impacted all the pieces from well being and schooling to the humanities. They’ve volunteered at numerous organizations collectively and independently over the previous 5 a long time.
Collectively, the Los Altos Hills duo established the Worldwide Heart for the Arts at San Francisco State College and contributed $25 million — the most important donation to the college ever — to ascertain the George and Judy Marcus Corridor for the Liberal and Inventive Arts and the brand new dwelling for the Broadcast and Digital Communication Arts program in 2018.
