Five local heroes will be honored with the Clallam County Community Service Award for 2009 on Thursday.
The award recipients are:
— Mikki Saunders, who retired last December after 22 years as the director of the Port Angeles Food Bank.
— Kathryn Schreiner of Sequim, whose volunteer efforts stretch from being a tax counselor to devoting thousands of hours to Sequim Meals of Wheels, Boys and Girls Club, Puget Sound Blood Center and the Dungeness Valley Health and Wellness Clinic.
— Jim Lunt of Port Angeles who, for more than 25 years, has guided youth baseball as president of the all-volunteer North Olympic Baseball and Softball Leagues.
— Chuck Hatten of Port Angeles, a leader of Healthy Families of Clallam County who also is very active in several programs that mentor teens.
— Tom Schaafsma of Sequim, an outstanding carpenter who helped remodel the Gathering Hall at Olympic Theatre Arts, led the construction of the ADA ramp at the old Dungeness Schoolhouse and a bird observation platform and worked on numerous other community projects.
He has been an emergency relief worker in Honduras and Peru.
The Clallam County Community Service 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.”
This is the 29th year of the award, begun by the Peninsula Daily News and now co-sponsored with Soroptimist International of Port Angeles-Noon Club.
Award ceremonies
The five recipents of the 2009 Community Service Award will receive framed award certificates at a reception that begins at 7 p.m. on Thursday in the downstairs meeting room at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 301 Lopez Ave., in Port Angeles.
The reception is open to the public and will include coffee and desserts.
Admission is free.
A judging committee that included past Community Service Award recipients selected the five from almost 20 nominations made by individuals, clubs, churches, businesses and other organizations.
“These are truly local heroes, working to make community life stronger, tighter, happier, richer — busy people who unselfishly give their time and energy to help others, who always seem to be able to make time to offer a hand or a shoulder,” said John Brewer, PDN editor and publisher.
Chuck Hatten
Hatten “not only wants to make a difference in our community, he makes this community healthier, stronger and a better place to live and raise our children,” said Becca Korby, executive director of Healthy Families of Clallam County, where Hatten is a board member and treasurer.
Korby hailed his “energy, knowledge, compassion, dedication and commitment.”
A retired company human resources director, Hatten is the founder and coordinator of the Port Angeles Rotary Club’s “Black Tie Program.”
It provides tutors and mentors to high school students who are failing at least one class.
The objective is to assist students in graduating and going on to college or a trade school.
He is also actively involved in a new coalition, PATH — Port Angeles Teen Help — and participates on the Port Angeles School District’s outreach and truancy committees.
He is also active in the First Baptist Church.
“Chuck Hatten makes a difference wherever he puts his energy,” Korby said.
Kathryn Schreiner
Her nomination came with a stack of endorsements from co-workers at volunteer agencies and fellow members of the Sunrise Rotary Club in Sequim.
“Kathy is a shining example of how we all should be,” wrote Carol Volk, local coordinator of the AARP Tax-Aide program.
“Excellent customer service skills and presents herself in a way to encourage the return of all donors,” according to Cecilia A. Stevens, volunteer service coordinator for the Puget Sound blood Center.
“An active member of our board . . . very involved . . . a hero . . . [and] she made jewelry to donate to the [clinic’s] Community Gift Shop” [proceeds from the jewelry sales benefit both the clinic and the Special Needs Advocacy Program],” wrote Margaret Preston, president of the Dungeness Valley Health and Wellness Clinic.
“Known Kathy for over 15 years. She has always worked tirelessly, ethically and empathetically . . . a wonderful person and an incredible human being,” wrote Carol Rutledge of Sequim.
“She’s helped paint the Sequim Food Bank, homes of the elderly . . . rings bells for the Salvation Army during the holidays . . . studies many hours at year’s end to learn new [tax] rules and regulations, then helps the Clallam County public from Forks to Diamond Point with their income tax.”
Mikki Saunders
At her retirement party Dec. 30, Saunders was showered with hugs, gifts, praise and appreciation for her 22 years of community service as Port Angeles Food Bank executive director.
“All these people, I just love all of them,” Saunders said after cake was served and cards were signed.
“This is my family.”
The food bank serves people from Sequim to Neah Bay. Saunders started out as a volunteer in the mid-1980s.
“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.
Said the board’s vice president, Elaine Hedtke:
“I have always been touched by the care and the dedication that she gives to the needy in the community, and her incredible willingness to share her time and energy to assure the food bank was always in the mind of the community.”
Ruth McNeece, a longtime neighbor of the food bank and husband of past board member Bob McNeece, said one of Saunders’ greatest assets was her ability to work with other organizations to help feed the needy.
“She was all about helping other nonprofits that were not able to feed the people they were trying to help,” Ruth McNeece said.
“She did Thanksgiving baskets, and Christmas baskets, so everybody got something. Bless her heart.”
Jim Lunt
Five persons wrote lengthy letters nominating Lunt for his Community Service Award.
Lunt is “the driving force and strength behind our successful [baseball] program, spending over 30 hours a week volunteering at Lincoln Park or devoting his time conducting League business during the season,” wrote Leslie Diimmel of Port Angeles.
Don Schlemmer of Port Angeles lauded Lunt as “the glue that holds everything together, from ‘T’ Ball to girl’s senior softball.”
Rick Ross, director of athletics and student programs at Peninsula College, wrote about Lunt’s contributions in many different jobs at the college, including residence hall manager, financial aid director, student government adviser and athletic director.
“He was especially instrumental in bringing back athletics to Peninsula in 1997, [working] with a team of college and community members to resurrect a program that has since brought Peninsula much success,” Ross wrote.
James Cole of Port Angeles noted that Lunt, as president of the Nor’wester Rotary Club in 1980 and 1981, implemented the Academic Excellence Program to energize Port Angeles middle school students — a program that continues today.
Said Stephen M. Zenovic of Zenovic and Associates civil engineering and land surveying in Port Angeles and himself a 2006 Community Service Award recipient:
“[Lunt] gives of his time and resources without asking for any recognition in return
“I have seen Jim working by himself at the Valley Creek Estuary Park because it needed some weeding done . . . he wasn’t asked, he just took the initiative to make the park look better.”
Thomas B. Schaafsma
If you travel through the Sequim area you’ll probably see Schaafsma’s carpentry skills expressed in many different ways.
A wheelchair ramp leading to an elderly person’s home might have been built by Schaafsma.
Through Sequim Sunrise Rotary, this tireless volunteer — a former residential contractor who moved to Sequim in 1988 — has helped build a number of them.
At the old Dungeness Schoolhouse, you will see his mark on the walkway to the building.
He helped construct the bird observation platform at Dungeness Bay and co-managed the remodeling of Olympic Theatre Arts’ Gathering Hall.
Have you taken a walk on the Discovery Trail?
Schaafsma, with other Rotarians, helped build the trail system at Robin Hill Park.
He helped construct the storage building at the Sequim Food Bank.
In 2007-2008 he headed a committee for the Sequim School District which completed a complex review of the district’s facilities.
School Superintendent Bill Bentley hailed Schaafsma as a “compassionate and capable leader . . . He really cares!”
Last Thanksgiving, he didn’t spend the holiday with his family.
Instead he flew to Honduras as an emergency aid worker and gave hundreds of flood victims there something to be thankful for — tents, portable stoves, blankets and water purifiers.
He also worked in a relief effort in Peru after a deadly earthquake there in 2007.
