PORT ANGELES — They came from vastly different backgrounds, but all five dignitaries lauded in Port Angeles on Thursday shared one thing in common — exemplary community service.
Chuck Hatten, Jim Lunt, Mikki Saunders, Tom Schaafsma and Kathryn Schreiner received the annual Clallam County Community Service Awards for 2009 in a public reception at Holy Lutheran Church attended by about 70 people.
The award honors the dedication, sacrifice and accomplishments of community leaders and volunteers “who have made a difference in Clallam County, who have made our communities a better place by doing extraordinary things for their neighbors, their community or the environment.”
Framed certificates went to each recipient.
A judging committee, including three past winners, narrowed the field to five from a list of about 20 nominees.
The 29th-year event was started by the Peninsula Daily News, and it is now co-sponsored by Soroptimist International of Port Angeles-Noon Club.
Inspirational, heroic
“The five that we have in the room tonight are inspirational both in spirit and in deed, and again heroic in the most untrivialized sense of that word,” said John Brewer, PDN editor and publisher, and host of the reception.
“They deserve analysis and they deserve imitation,” he added.
“I think they’re role models for all of us — not only because they’ve aspired and dreamed, but because our local heroes’ achievements are within reach of all of us.”
Originally called the Citizen of the Year, the honor became the Community Service Award in 1991. Three to seven recipients have received awards every year.
Before the recipients were introduced, the Peninsula Men’s Gospel Singers performed a rousing rendition of “This Little Light of Mine, I’m Going To Let It Shine.”
Mikki Saunders
Saunders, a Port Angeles resident, was the longtime director of the Port Angeles Food Bank until she retired last December.
“I almost cried,” Saunders said, moments after receiving the award.
“I’m very emotional when someone thanks me. I had been at the food bank for 22 years, and it was my whole life.”
She was introduced by her retired pastor, the Rev. Ken Dooley of the First United Methodist Church of Port Angeles, who explained how Saunders’ early life in Missouri prepared her to appreciate the need for people to feed others in a community.
“There were times when it wasn’t a matter of where the next meal was coming from, but if there was going to be a next meal,” he said.
Saunders is credited with turning the Port Angeles Food Bank into a model for other communities.
“The Port Angeles Food Bank would not be what it is today without the contributions of Mikki Saunders,” said John Miller, president of the food bank’s board of directors, when Saunders retired.
Saunders drew cheers from the audience when she announced her plans to continue feeding the needy at the Port Angeles Salvation Army.
Jim Lunt
Lunt has served as president of the all-volunteer North Olympic Baseball and Softball Leagues for more than 25 years.
The Port Angeles man said he was uncomfortable receiving the award.
“You shouldn’t expect praise for doing what you know is right in the first place,” Lunt said.
“Doing what’s right in the first place has its own intrinsic rewards.”
Lunt summarized the community spirit of Clallam County — and drew the biggest laugh of the night — recalling a time when he was pulling weeds along the Olympic Discovery Trail. A passerby asked why he was doing it.
“I said well, community service, I suppose,” Lunt said.
“She said, ‘Well, I wish we had that in our town.'”
When Lunt asked the passerby what she meant, she replied: “In our town, we don’t have community service. In our town, you just have to sit in jail until you’ve done your time.”
Chuck Hatten
Hatten, of Port Angeles, is a leader in Healthy Families of Clallam County. He is also active in several programs for teens.
He founded the Port Angeles Rotary Club’s “Black Tie Program,” which provides tutors and mentors to high school students who, each, are failing at least one class.
“Our kids are our future, and if we don’t do something to help them, they will be a burden rather than an asset to us, and we can do better,” Hatten said.
Hatten drew a “life is a road” analogy, and stressed the importance of reading the signs.
“We get on the wrong road, like I did as a child, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be on that road going in the wrong direction forever,” Hatten said.
“You have to pay attention to the signs, but most importantly, you have to know where you’re going.”
Event co-host Cherie Kidd of Soroptimist International of Port Angeles, and a Port Angles City Council member, praised Hatten for his dedication to the youth of the community and for his easygoing attitude.
“It’s easy to make friends with Chuck Hatten,” Kidd said. “You just have to say hello.”
The first Black Tie Dinner is slated for June 20.
Kathryn Schreiner
Schreiner, of Sequim, is a multi-purpose volunteer who has spent countless hours helping as a Tax Aid counselor, with Sequim Meals on Wheels, Boys and Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula, Puget Sound Blood Center and the Dungeness Valley Health and Wellness Clinic.
She deflected credit for the award to the organizations for which she works.
“These are service organizations — they should be honored, I should not be honored,” Schreiner said.
“I’m just a member of the team in these organizations, and these organizations do the good work in the community.”
In discussing the health and wellness clinic, Schreiner said: “Where would we be without our free clinic? As you know, right now, we are in very difficult, challenging times, and we are seeing the need for our free clinic increase substantially.”
Schreiner and her husband, John, moved to Sequim in January 1993.
“I didn’t just want to live in the community, I wanted to be a part of the community,” she said.
Tom Schaafsma
Schaafsma, also of Sequim, is the quintessential community builder.
His projects include the remodeling of the Gathering Hall at Olympic Theatre Arts, the construction of an wheelchair ramp at the old Dungeness Schoolhouse, the bird observation platform at Dungeness Bay, the trails at Robin Hill Park and many others.
“I’m humbled and honored to be in the presence of the company of my fellow recipients and former recipients of this award,” he said.
“None of us do what we do for the purpose of being in this position that we’re in tonight. We do it, and I think I speak for all of you, out of a sense of gratitude for all the good things that we’ve received.”
Schaafsma spent last Thanksgiving in Honduras working in emergency aid. He joined the relief effort in Peru after a deadly earthquake there in 2007.
He volunteers for Shelter Box, which builds emergency shelters for victims of natural disasters around the world.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
