Volunteer of the Week:

Diane Lawrence

Diane Lawrence has always had a soft spot for children. Even as she struggled to conceive her own child, she volunteered with others as a Brownie troop leader. “We had a great time with that troop,” she said. She quit when her own son, Christopher was born. “I really wanted a half dozen kids, but we were truly blessed with Chris. Now he is studying to be an EMT,” said the proud mom.

When young Chris went off to kindergarten, Diane was there working as a room mom while juggling a 40-hour week as at EMQ. At that job she organized their Christmas gift giving program so that people in the community could adopt a family in crisis to make their holidays a little brighter.

Diane organized the Los Alamitos Walk-a-Thon fundraiser when Chris was in fifth grade and a couple of years later she was named Parent Volunteer of the Year at Bret Harte Middle School. She earned that title by coordinating the crab feed for two years and then coordinating the graduation ceremony.

“I also helped chaperone dances, which my son said was OK as long as I stayed outside and was never in the same room as him,” she laughed.

Around this time she also served for eight years on the board of directors for the Almaden Little League and was in charge of approximately 250 players ages 5 to 8 years old as the T-Ball representative for the league.

When Chris went to Pioneer High School, Diane jumped into volunteering there too, organizing the grad nights for two years in a row (including one year after her own son had graduated)!

But, one of her proudest accomplishments in the community is her efforts as a member of the Almaden Women's Club to increase the size of the children's area for the Almaden Art & Wine Festival. It is one of the biggest children's areas of any festival in the area.

“I got sponsors involved and brought in the pony guy and the train man,” she said. “It was really important to me that the children's area be a really safe and fun place for the children.”

Due to her parents declining health, Diane was unable to help out with the festival this year. But she is continuing her good works by actively recruiting donations for 50 families that her current workplace, Adaptec, adopted for the holidays.

“I'm not able to volunteer quite as much anymore,” said Diane. “But I still want to do something. I can't even remember a time when I wasn't volunteering.”

-By Julie Davis Berry