By Kathleen Acuff

Recipients of the John Gardner Building Community Awards for 2005 are: (from left, front) Jane Turnbull (League of Women Voters), Candy Pelissero (Music For Minors), Dorothy Dixon (Los Altos Sister Cities, Inc.), Elayne Dauber (Los Altos Library volunteer), Vicki Reeder (Bus Barn Stage Company), Mona Armistead (El Camino YMCA), Susi Kohan (Foothill College), Dan Alexander (Friends of Westwind Barn); (back) Liz Duveneck Dana (Hidden Villa), George Stanley (El Camino Hospital Foundation) and George Limbach (Los Altos Community Foundation).

“Liberty and duty, freedom and obligation. That’s the deal.” The quote is from the Los Altos Community Foundation’s guiding spirit, the late John W. Gardner. More than 200 local volunteers who live those words filled a banquet room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel April 5 to cheer 11 of their number receiving the foundation’s 2005 Building Community awards.

The kazoos arrived with dessert.

The chairman of the community foundation board, Roy Lave, began the ceremony by invoking Gardner and introducing Rich Fischer, the Town Crier’s Los Altan of the Year for 2004. Fischer emceed the event. The dinner was the second of what the foundation intends to be an annual event to honor volunteers for their contributions to education, the performing arts, the environment, libraries, health and civic life.

Fischer, superintendent of the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District, praised the “remarkable volunteer organizations that add so much to our community.”

The new honorees are Vicki Reeder of the Bus Barn Stage Company; George Stanley, president of El Camino Hospital Foundation; Mona Armistead, a longtime volunteer at El Camino YMCA; Elizabeth Duveneck Dana of Hidden Villa; Dan Alexander of the Friends of Westwind Barn; Susi Kohan who has served Foothill Community College for years; George Limbach of the community foundation; Elayne Dauber, a Los Altos Library volunteer; Dorothy Dickson, a volunteer with Los Altos Sister Cities; Jane Turnbull of the Los Altos-Mountain View League of Women Voters; and Candy Pelissero of Music for Minors.

Reeder “is the Bus Barn Stage Company,” said Jim Thurber, as he presented the Building Community award to her. Reeder has done everything at the theater from sweeping floors to singing her own compositions in the annual Bus Barn Follies. Offstage, she has been a leader in the local chapter of the American Association of University Women, co-founded the Tech Time Science Club for Girls.

Handing a Building Community award to George Stanley, the president of El Camino Hospital Foundation, hospital CEO Lee Domanico said that Stanley had “brought back a lot of longtime friends (of the hospital) and increased fund-raising by 500 percent” in the past two years.

El Camino YMCA board president and former Los Altos Police Chief Don Johnson presented a Building Community award to Armistead for the counseling center she started at the YMCA two years ago.

Hidden Villa’s executive director, Beth Ross, thanked Dana and her siblings for “providing this amazing resource to us. Hidden Villa is a treasure, and Liz is a treasure,” Ross said.

Los Altos Hills Mayor Mike O’Malley told the gathering that Alexander “exemplifies community service and spirit” as he presented him a Building Community award. Alexander served on the board of directors of the Purissima Hills Water District for 30 years.

Gay Krause, executive director of the Krause Center for Innovation at Foothill Community College, presented the award to Kohan, who has volunteered at the college since 1985. Kohan donates her editorial services to the Krause Center, where she also acts as special projects coordinator and a member of the advisory board.

Limbach’s sister Louse Spangler presented the Building Community award to him for his work with the Los Altos Community Foundation, where he founded the grants committee, which he has chaired for 12 years. Limbach is involved in Big Brothers/Big Sisters, is on the advisory board for Pilgrim Haven, and was a volunteer for the YMCA.

Pat Johnson said Dauber is “working on her fifth and last library funding issue,” referring to the current campaign for Measures A and B. She told the audience that the volunteer has always been known for listening to both sides of an issue and offering a winning compromise. Dauber also established the Friends’ Café at the Los Altos main library.

Jerry Blaufarb told the audience that Dickson’s volunteer work for Sister Cities grew out of her inviting college instructors from Los Altos’ Russian sister city, Syktyvkar, into her classroom at Santa Rita Elementary School, where she teaches “English as another language.” She learned American English after coming to this country from Scotland, Blaufarb said, and now coordinates the Los Altos School District’s English Language Learners program. As Dickson accepted her award, her principal, Steve Peck, led his table in the spirited kazoo version of “Scotland the Brave.”

Mary Nichols presented the Building Community award to Turnbull, noting that the volunteer is an expert on biomass energy who a regular participant in California Energy Commission workshops. She is known for her persuasiveness, Nichols said, and has increased the league’s membership and visibility in the community.

Dennis Ronberg of Linden Tree Children’s Recordings & Books presented the award to Pelissero, saying that she just stepped off the Music for Minors board after serving for years as executive director. “We look to her for how to be a successful nonprofit,” he said. “And we thank her for music in the schools, not only in Los Altos but also beyond.”

Fischer closed the ceremony by leading the room in “Happy Trails to You.”