Our Volunteer Engagement and Support Team, also known as V.E.S.T, is a group of super-dedicated volunteers, with wide-ranging skills, that provide ongoing support and guidance to new—and current!—volunteers at 826 Valencia. These amazing folks also bring valuable feedback to our staff so we can keep improving your volunteer experience, making it the most satisfactory and enjoyable as possible. Keep reading to know more about this fabulous group, and find out who volunteers in the most programs and who is Captain Blue’s best friend!
Susan Birnbaum has been volunteering with us since 2015, dedicating over 150 hours to our students, primarily at our Storytelling and Bookmaking Field Trips at the Mission Center. She brings her enthusiasm and unwavering commitment to our programs on a daily basis. A dedicated volunteer, Susan goes above and beyond for our community, supporting our students and volunteers. She seeks out organizations that focus on youth, creativity, and education, and is involved in several nonprofits that support projects created by students, nurturing their ideas and imaginations in the process.
Ed Cavagnaro started out as a regular tutor in our summer programs in 2015 and went on to dedicate himself to projects such as
The Straight-Up News,
Mission Magazine, and the Young Authors’ Book Project. He is also a staple tutor in several of our Tenderloin programs and used his expertise as a radio producer to help us shape and launch our Podcasting Field Trip program. On top of all that, Ed has also helped plan and lead several podcasting workshops for high school students at our Mission Center, and taken it upon himself to edit the final products. Needless to say, when he was brought up as a nominee for the Volunteer of the Month, staff lined up to sing his praises.
Gloria Lenhart loves San Francisco the way only an East Coast transplant can. She arrived in San Francisco just in time for the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. When she’s not helping with field trips at 826, you can find her leading walking tours around the city for San Francisco City Guides. In 2014, she launched the City Explorer San Francisco app offering downloadable tours of SF neighborhoods for smartphones and tablets, where you can find sunken ships routes in the financial district, hidden gardens downtown, and more. And proceeds from the app benefit 826 Valencia.
Tim R. studied architecture, apparel, and graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design, and you can guess in which of these fields he has degrees. He has been a tutor, volunteer designer, and “snack lady” with 826 Valencia since 2010, and the rest is history. He speaks a bunch of languages and has lived, traveled, and studied in colder, far-flung climates. The sunny Mission is now his home, where he loves the Muni J-line, free-ish yoga, and mandated composting. His design alter-ego is Subject-Object.net, through which he has also produced retail goods, focusing on the informational, the anecdotal, and the PBS in all of us. Some of those “Objects” have found their way into the Pirate Supply Store, where he now also works part-time.”