Honorees for the 2011 Hammer-Marcum Award

Karin Ann Park

&

Terry Umstead

Karin Ann Park’s years of service to the San Lorenzo Valley community demonstrate the warmth of her personality, the generosity of her spirit, her awareness of the practical and emotional needs of individuals, her interest in our unique history, and her recognition of the importance of healthy local businesses to a more rural community like the San Lorenzo Valley.

Karin Ann has provided funding for the needy through a series of successful fundraisers for Valley Churches United Missions since 1996. All the proceeds from the sale of Joe’s Bar merchandise goes to Valley Churches. Her famous dinners not only provide a great social event for the community, they have raised thousands of dollars in support of VCUM. Hundreds of pies have been provided at Thanksgiving to the needy through her efforts over the years. Whenever there have been shortages of food, which is frequently now, Karin Ann organizes donations of their most needed items like peanut butter and jelly, cereal, cans of soup, and tuna. VCUM Manager, Linda Lovelace said, “She has such passion for the community … her passion level is unmatched.”  Joe’s Bar hosts many fundraisers including the Annual Pig Roast, the St. Patrick’s Day Corned Beef Feed, and the Annual Christmas Party. All proceeds from the sale of shirts and hats are also donated.

Karin Ann has also supported VCUM’s Valley Christmas Project for over twenty years, including adopting four to six families each year and making sure their Christmas is a joyful occasion with Santa Claus visits, gifts for all, and enough food for weeks. One of those nominating Karin for this Award wrote that Karin had adopted her and her daughters twenty years ago, at “a desperate time,” when they would have had no Christmas at all without her. It was the beginning of a long and meaningful relationship.

Karin Ann is a strong supporter of Santa Cruz Hospice. For years she has provided exceptional gifts for the “luxury baskets” that are auctioned off at the annual Oktoberfest fundraiser, has regularly attended events with her husband Robert, and purchased tickets for those wanting to come but unable to afford it.

Karin also supports the Boulder Creek Fire Department tending bar for two of their fundraisers; the Red Hot, Red Hat Golf Tournament and the Firemen’s Ball.

As a businesswoman she supports local businesses by being active in the local Merchants’ Association, and producing the new Boulder Creek Happenings Calendar. At her own place of business, Joe’s Bar, www.joesbc.com, she provides a warm and comfortable place often referred to as “Boulder Creek’s Living Room,” with popcorn and pool, live music a couple nights a week, a table where people can find good clothing for free, donated by local folks, a safe and fun place for the young people from around the world who are counselors at Camp Krem (a local camp for children and adults with developmental disabilities) to come relax on Friday nights, and even the drop-off spot for a local bakery co-op. It’s the proverbial “place where everybody knows your name,” and where all are welcomed and feel appreciated.

Karin Ann has produced a remarkable series fund-raising dinners for local individuals who, through a crisis, are faced with a difficult time. A while ago, a local woman whose husband died unexpectedly was faced with unaffordable demands and Karin Ann organized, and cooked for, a large dinner event to help her out. Karin held a hugely successful “Shrimp Boil” fundraiser for Bryan Stow. A few years back, her fundraiser for Dave Bartel helped with his enormous medical bills. After the terrible fires in Bonny Doone, Karin Ann held a “Fire on the Mountain” fundraiser and provided over $1,000 to the Bonny Doon Volunteer Fire Department. She has helped raise funds for the Blue Star Moms and Pennies for Peace. The list goes on. She knows the folks in her area and helps when help is needed.

Understanding the importance of the San Lorenzo Valley’s history to its present, she serves on the Board of the Historical Society which runs the SLV History Museum. She organized and produced the Museum’s annual Spaghetti Feed fundraiser for six years, making the spaghetti sauce from scratch and bringing in donations of food and great prizes for the raffle. She established the annual Children’s Christmas TreeTrimming event in 2003, and has organized it every year since; this event brings in dozens of families to make traditional crafts (personally tested for safety and fun); it takes many volunteers, and much preparation. Since 2004, Karin Ann has worked with the Collections and Exhibit areas of the Museum to produce a patriotic float for the annual Boulder Creek 4^th of July Parade, involving lots of children and adults in authentic historic costumes. She sells raffle tickets, posts flyers, and donates to every Museum auction fundraiser.

Karin Ann is a joyful woman who loves people, and demonstrates constantly that an individual can make a difference when she cares and takes the time to help out. It is an honor to present the Hammer-Marcum Award to Karin Ann Park this year.

Terry Umstead has devoted his life to young people in the San Lorenzo Valley. His efforts have inspired and strengthened and nurtured thousands of junior and senior high students for thirty years. He has been a skilled and sympathetic teacher, a dynamic coach, a mentor and motivator, and an environmental steward of remarkable consequence.

The creation of the SLV High School Watershed Academy in 1992 is a major legacy of Terry’s. The Watershed Academy is a four-year Environmental Technology program for students in grades 9-12 that provides four years of science, with specialty courses in Aquaculture, Environmental Science and Environmental monitoring. This California State funded program is a partnership between business and education that provides real-world work experience in the field, as well as an integrated academic and technical curriculum. Upon graduation, students are prepared not only for entry-level employment in a high-growth profession, but are also equipped with the academic skills for continuing their education.  Terry, and fellow teacher Jane Orbuch, created the Academy at San Lorenzo Valley High School, realizing their dream to integrate our local environment and watershed into an educationally rich and hands-on science program for students. http://www.slvhs.slv.k12.ca.us/watershed/index.htm

Providing this unique program, and its skilled team of teachers, for so many years has depended upon hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from a series of grants. This has required hundreds of hours completing the grants, writing progress reports, tracking students after they left the Academy to validate the program’s worthiness for funding, documenting how funds were spent, creating advisory committees to provide guidance, demonstrating the benefits of the programs to students  – all extra demands that Terry provided on his own time. Along with benefiting the students in the program, providing hands-on, real-life skills and motivating a life-long interest in science and the environment, Terry voluntarily provided Saturday workshops twice a year for five years, each time enabling twenty to thirty teachers from all over California to learn this creative curriculum.

A special feature of recent grants was the fact that the program could help “AT RISK” students, and at least 60% of enrollees are thus identified. Another exciting aspect of a recent grant is that the program would reach out to local businesses to provide internships, mentoring and job-shadowing programs; from 30 to 40 businesses are so involved each year.

Terry’s part of the program, teaching Aquaculture, give students the skills to maintain and propagate Koi; these beautiful fish are then sold to offset the cost of fish food. The Academy donates goldfish to community fishponds and the Cabrillo aquaponics program. Students also maintain steelhead from the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project in an indoor tank. They also maintain ducks, an Iguana and eleven snakes, as well as a rat building outside where they raise and propagate rats to feed to the snakes. They maintain a hydroponics system that cleans sewage effluent with aquatic plants, and many other innovative projects. Students under Terry’s guidance and supervision constructed all the buildings at the aquaculture facility.

Terry created the Community Service Credit Program, called “Service-Learning,” where students work 20 hours/year, taking their learning, far beyond the regular curriculum, into the community. Terry has mentored many in creating Science Faire projects that have earned them statewide recognition.

Knowing that students need to connect with job opportunities, Terry teamed with a local business called “Your Future is Our Business” to provide students with internships or job-shadowing opportunities.

Beyond the Watershed Academy, Terry coached after school sports, including wrestling, surfing, and track & field — and provided outdoor recreational activities far outside the normal school schedule — for over 25 years. This has included an annual October weekend kayaking trip to the Marin coast, 2-week surfing expeditions to Mexico each year for 12 years, and for 5 years, a 3-week camping and fishing expedition to the Alaskan Inland Passage. Except for airfare that students earned, the boat, equipment and supplies were provided by Terry and a former teacher. Can you imagine camping on an island, catching enough halibut and salmon to smoke and package to distribute to the native people, and helping locals with boat repairs and other activities? What amazing experiences Terry has provided to the young women and men involved!

Since 1995, Terry has supervised and run the adult salmonid fish trapping facility at the Felton Diversion, providing students with experience in organization, scheduling, operating equipment, handling wild fish, and much more. Terry often spends 3-4 hours per night there while it is operational, for 2-3 weeks each winter during storm periods. The steelhead are captured for broodstock for eggs for the Monterey Bay Hatchery. The process is complex and all the data is collected and preserved by the academy, and is available to local and State agencies, and to Don Alley, the local fishery biologist who is monitoring juvenile salmonid populations.

Terry also taught construction techniques, and now teaches solar power conversion at Cabrillo College, and plans to continue doing so after his retirement at the end of of this school year

According to Don Alley, one of those nominating Terry for the Award, “Terry has provided a stable, constructive, alternative home-base for youth of the SLV…. A positive father-figure and good male role model….He gives student special responsibilities and expects follow-through, thus preparing them for real life experiences in the adult world. …He deeply cares for their well-being and they realize it.”

One of his student athletes, Matt Weld (who also nominated Terry) is now an engineer, with a successful business restoring watersheds; he credits Terry’s coaching and high standards, and his “can-do attitude about everything,” with providing him with “the skills and confidence” (in sports) that enabled him to “become a leader in other areas.”

This young man calls himself a part of Terrys’ legacy saying, “I am one of the many that Terry has nurtured in the Valley through his love, dedication and hard work…. I never wanted to lose his respect and tried to act accordingly.”

This is why we are honored to present Terry Umstead with the 2011 Hammer-Marcum Award.

The Hammer-Marcum Award Celebration will take place on Sunday, Octoboer 27th, 1:30-3:30, at the Highlands Park Senior Center in Ben Lomond. The event includes delicious desserts made by Jeri and Bruce Oneto, live music featuring Steve Abrams, and the Award presentation. The cost is $12 and reservations are appreciated. Free childcare is provided, simply indicate the number of children when you make your reservation. Call Nancy Macy at 338-6578 to RSVP, or send your check to the VWC, PO Box 574, Ben Lomond,CA 95005.