By Lori Lee
I have been a volunteer with ACC for as long as I can remember. I’m talking before there was even a Nursing Home/Care Center.
I attribute my volunteering to my parents, Wil and Frances Lee. They got involved when ACC was a small grassroots organization. Actually, it was my mom that got involved with some of her friends like Gloria Imagire and my dad just went along with it. I remember going to the Tambara house across from Southside Park where there was always something going on. The only staff we had were Joyce Sakai and Donna Owfook. I worked on my school stuff while my mom did her thing.
Early on, there was a need for an Asian Nursing Home and they were trying to raise money to get one built for our seniors. A nursing home that served familiar food and spoke the same languages. I can remember one of the first fundraisers was an Asian art sale at the CalPERS Building downtown. The trees in the building had little white lights, the art was hung or displayed with care and individuals walked away with their purchased beautiful pieces of art. We served refreshments and it was a fun affair.
In the 1980’s, to my family’s surprise, my mother volunteered to be the ACC BINGO Manager. We never imagined she would spend over 25,000 volunteer hours. Initially, we had three sessions every week. With my parents being gone so much, one of the ways to see them was to volunteer. My mother was usually in the money room and my dad was on the floor. There were 25 to 30 volunteers each session, so we got to know each other, as well as the 200 BINGO players and had a great time. We became another sort of family.
Eventually, I got a real job with the State of California, Department of the Youth Authority, as a Youth Counselor. I relocated to El Centro, CA, in the midst of planning our wedding to my husband, Tony Lewis, who was in law school, and we were busy. After a couple of years, I was able to transfer to Stockton, CA to one of our facilities and in 1987 had my twins, Ashlee and Brandon. We were busy for a few years, but I went back to BINGO in 1989. Many of the same volunteers were still there with several new additions.
In the past 40 plus years, I have seen the tremendous growth of ACC and met several volunteers and staff that have become my lifelong friends. My Dad passed away in 1999, but before he died, he and Chewy Ito worked hard on the purchase of the Park City property, the first expansion for ACC.
After Donna Yee became our CEO, ACC grew! We acquired Greenhaven Terrace Independent Living and later expanded to Assisted Living, we gained the Merryhill property, our current Administration Building and the fabulous Maple Tree Village. I learned from Donna to allow seniors to grow old with dignity and grace! In the future, I believe all these will continue and I’m sure we will keep growing in response to the needs of our seniors.
Both my parents had been on the ACC Board, so I too joined the Board around 2007 or 2008 and served two terms. I continue to serve on the Greenhaven Terrace, Crab Feed, Fund Development, Volunteer Development, Maple Tree Village Ad Hoc and Care Center Fundraiser Committees. I also volunteer as a server for Meals on Wheels at the Sacramento Japanese United Methodist Church Tanoshimi Kai one or two times a month. If there is a celebration or a party, I am glad to help! We’ve learned that each volunteer has a gift and is good at something. If we band together and each uses their special gift, we can get things done!
We all have the same goal in mind, which is to help our seniors and community. I would never have met some of these people without ACC and although I hate to admit it, we’re all getting older, but we are vital and passionate. We will use the programs offered, be a volunteer, be an instructor, live at Greenhaven Terrace, Maple Tree Village or the Care Center.
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