Threads of Hope

This year has been a tough one for many of us, and sometimes it seems as if it would be easy to say, “We give up.” But, giving up has never been an option for this year’s winners of Diablo’s annual Threads of Hope Awards. These East Bay residents have found that if you want to do great things for others, you need to start simple: a garden, a guitar lesson, a bag of food, a holiday party, a lemonade stand. One small step leads to the next. Pretty soon, amazing things are possible, and the fabric of our community becomes that much stronger.

What does an Eight-year-old know about lung cancer?

If she’s had it, like Gabby Wilson of Lafayette, she knows it makes you cough, and you miss a lot of school because you keep going into the hospital. And, it can take doctors a long time to figure out it’s not pneumonia because—well—girls in kindergarten don’t get lung cancer!

Only old people who have smoked for years get “flubber” in their lungs, right? Flubber: That’s what Gabby calls her cancer. She thinks of it as that weird rubbery green stuff that grows and grows in the Robin Williams movie.

Gabby also knows that going to hospitals when you have flubber in your lungs means having tubes shoved down your throat. And, she knows it hurts after doctors take out your left lung during surgery. “The first time I stood up, I felt excruciating pain,” the second-grader says. Gabby doesn’t hold back her opinions, including angry comments about some of the doctors and nurses who poked and prodded her.

But, Gabby also knows that you can start to feel better after an operation, and go back to school, and even join a soccer team. Except, you might not be able to run as fast as other kids.

Most of all, Gabby knows that it’s important to tell her story, to let people know that lung cancer is the deadliest kind of cancer, and that 25 percent of all people who get it are nonsmokers like her.

That’s why Gabby participates in walks and talks at fundraising events for the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation and the Beverly Fund.

Gabby also holds her own fundraisers. She has sold lemonade in front of her house to raise money for research. She has also handed out pins and donation envelopes to families at her big brother’s baseball game. “I ask if they can put in $20. If they say no, I tell them why it’s important.”

Gabby’s type of lung cancer is extremely rare. Worldwide, only 10 people a year are diagnosed with it. That means a lot of unknowns for Gabby, her parents, and her older brother and sister. How did she get it? Will it come back? Gabby seems to be cancer-free, for now. She goes in for tests every six months.

And, she’ll keep telling her story so that people will know one important thing about lung cancer: It’s not just smokers who get it. “It’s kids, too,” she says.  —Martha Ross

To volunteer for or donate to the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, go to lungcancerfoundation.org. 

As Salvador learns to speak English in his new homeland, he is also learning how to grow vegetables to feed himself, his family, and his neighbors.

The 10-year-old is one of about 20 kids living in the low-income Lakeside Apartments off Monument Boulevard who spent the past year tending the complex’s garden. On a hot morning, Salvador displayed a foot-long zucchini, shiny green and ready to eat.

The garden is small, but it is the latest effort by veteran activist Mary Lou Laubscher to nurture a sense of community in Concord’s long-troubled Monument Corridor. A 55-year Monument resident, Laubscher also helped start a day care for low-income families and organized seniors into programs to help children learn how to read.

Laubscher, 78, and her husband, Wes, moved into the Concord neighborhood to teach in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District, after receiving master’s degrees in education from Stanford. Laubscher left teaching when she became a mother to four kids, and later a foster mom to seven more, while her husband moved into counseling, and later into administration.

The Monument neighborhood became the base for one of Contra Costa’s most distinguished volunteer careers. Laubscher’s work evolved organically, like a garden, Laubscher says, with “one thing leading to another.” Among other things, she co-founded Save Mount Diablo and Shelter Inc., the county’s largest nonprofit that provides homeless services.

Her drive to help others comes from growing up in Piedmont. “I got upset when I saw how people with servants treated them. I thought, ‘That’s not fair.’ I’ve always wanted to make a more even playing field.”

Now, she’s trying to level some of the obstacles faced by her Monument neighbors. The area has one of the county’s highest concentrations of immigrants and people living in poverty. Creating community gardens, such as the one at Lakeside Apartments and in local schools, enriches people’s lives. At the Lakeside complex, it’s not just the kids who take care of the garden. The adults do, too, and the families share in its bounty. “People are so proud of it,” Laubscher says. “They are coming out of their apartments. That garden is a metaphor for our community being healthier and more connected.”   —Martha Ross

To volunteer for or donate to the Monument Community Gardens Action Team, go to monumentcommunity.org.

Barbara Gorin gushes about Guitars Not Guns with the kind of enthusiasm most rock fans reserve for front-row concert tickets. The Diablo resident volunteers for the Contra Costa chapter of a national program that offers free guitars and lessons to kids in poor neighborhoods.

“On the first day of class, the students sign a contract that says they will take care of the guitar, that they will practice and come to all the classes, and that they’ll return the guitar,” she says. Eight weeks later, they’re playing a three-chord song, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” at graduation. “To see them play together is a joy, but it’s not the best part. The best part is when they find out they get to keep the guitar.”

Sitting in Walnut Creek’s Red House Live music studios, Gorin, 47, strums an Ovation acoustic. She is one of two women in a room filled with guys armed with electric axes. Gorin has recruited many of the rockers to volunteer as instructors for Guitars Not Guns’ classes in Martinez and Richmond.

“See Andrew, the guy in the Zoso T playing the Strat?” Gorin says, pointing at a 17-year-old De La Salle student who’s wailing away on “Black Dog.” “He just saw his first class graduate.”

Gorin grew up in Maryland and has practiced guitar on her own for most of her life, but never thought about playing in a band or teaching. That all changed when she ran into Frank Darling, the president of Guitars Not Guns’ California chapter, selling a CD of music by the program’s graduates at a booth at the Walnut Festival.

“Barbara asked if she could help—literally—right away,” says Darling. “She took a stack of CDs out into the crowd and came back a few minutes later with a stack of cash.”

Gorin started teaching and spending countless hours raising money and collecting donated instruments. She even tracked down the managers of rock legends Heart and Blondie—both of whom donated guitars signed by the bands to sell on eBay. 

Clearly, Gorin’s enthusiasm has an effect on everyone around her—the Guitars Not Guns staff, the Red House Live jammers, and, most important, the kids picking up a guitar for the first time.

“I see how much fun she’s having, and it makes me want to have fun playing music, too,” says Rochelle, a 13-year-old Guitars Not Guns graduate from Pleasant Hill.  —Peter Crooks

To volunteer for or donate to Guitars Not Guns, go to guitarsnotguns.org. 

Summoned to a hospital outside Sacramento on December 16, 2000, Janet and Jim Frazier learned that their daughter Stephanie, 20, had died in a car crash. They also learned that their younger daughter and only other child, 17-year-old Lindsey, could die from massive internal injuries suffered in the same crash.

Throughout a long night and into the next morning, the Oakley couple sat by Lindsey’s bed in the trauma unit, waiting to see if she would survive. At 4 a.m., Lindsey’s blood pressure plummeted. A team of nurses and doctors tore in, and as Janet and Jim stood to get out of the way, Janet almost collapsed.

A nurse asked: “When was the last time you ate?” The nurse, returning with a brown bag from home, pulled out a sandwich and handed it to Janet. Although Janet could only nibble a few bites, the nurse’s simple gesture touched her heart.

“After the nurse gave me that bite, I felt this warmth in my heart,” she says. “Somebody did something nice, in the face of this horrible, horrible time. I never forgot how that felt.”

Lindsey survived the surgery and came home—in time to be with her parents at Stephanie’s memorial. Throughout the tragedy, Janet and Jim Frazier kept thinking of how the nurse’s generosity helped them on that awful night. Eventually, it inspired them to start a program to help families in the same way.

The Network of Care, a project of the Stephanie Marie Frazier Memorial Fund, provides bags of snacks and meals to families of children in 41 hospitals throughout California, including the East Bay, and Colorado. The bags go to 1,200 families a month, totaling 43,000 since the program started. The bags are assembled and distributed by the Fraziers and a cadre of friends, coworkers, and volunteers.

“I was by myself with a frightened son hooked up to all kinds of machines,” writes a mother in one of the many e-mails the Fraziers have received. “Without [Network of Care], I would not have eaten.”

Janet and Jim Frazier believe Stephanie would be proud of the foundation created in her name: “It’s just something so simple,” says Janet, a marketing coordinator at Chevron. “You just know when you’re putting together the bags that another family will feel the warmth in their hearts like I did.”  —Martha Ross

To volunteer for or donate to the Network of Care, call (925) 584-4086, or visit thenetworkofcare.org. 

While Christmas shopping for her husband and two children at Southland Mall in 1975, Zarohee Attinello noticed that many of the people around her were unhappy, wearily fulfilling the obligations of a consumer-driven holiday.

“It’s not like I hadn’t noticed it before, but this time, I just couldn’t shake the feeling,” she says.

The Pleasanton resident began making phone calls, hoping to find an opportunity to share the giving spirit of Christmas, especially with underprivileged children. She connected with Alameda County’s Social Services Agency, who located maximum-need families in the county and hatched a plan to provide those families with not only gifts, but a complete Christmas party.

“Some families don’t have beds or refrigerators, or proper clothes,”

Attinello says. “You don’t expect this to be where you live—right in your own backyard. But, it proves that you don’t need to look far and wide to find people in need.”

The first Christmas party came together in Oakland the following December—and has continued every year since. Now on her 34th party, the 64-year-old spends most of the year coordinating volunteers, securing a venue, and purchasing and wrapping gifts (or getting friends
to help because she “can’t wrap worth beans,” she says). Over the years, Attinello has enlisted friends, family, coworkers, local businesses, and even her dentist to provide gifts or donations.

“Zarohee does not work for any group but organizes this party as an individual out of the goodness of her heart,” says volunteer Judy Opperman.

Around 140 kids attend Attinello’s party each year. Each child receives a gift, goodie bag, stuffed animal, and blanket. They enjoy treats, carol singing, and a visit from Santa—the latter is photographed as a keepsake.

Born and raised in Oakland, Attinello’s childhood Christmas memories are simple: a tree, family, gifts that required imagination, and playtime with the neighborhood kids. The love and warmth of the season is something she’ll never forget—and hopes to pass along.

“This is about more than Christmas,” she says. “I want each child to feel important and special. That will stay with them—that touches the heart.”  —Leeanne Jones

To volunteer for or donate to one of Attinello’s Christmas parties, e-mail zaroheekids@yahoo.com.