VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT

Sarah Dubin-Vaughn

Del Mar Community Connections owes ever so much to Sarah Dubin-Vaughn, one of the organization's first volunteers. A former President of the DMCC Board of Directors, Sarah was responsible for setting up DMCC's Volunteer Driver Program, one of the cornerstone activities of the organization.

Sarah is one of Del Mar's long-time residents, having first come to Del Mar in 1951 looking for property on which to build a house in the newly subdivided Torrey Pines Terrace. She and her husband, Jack Bradshaw, moved into the house in 1953, and raised their four children here in Del Mar. Indeed, in 1955, their oldest child began kindergarten in the building that now houses Del Mar Community Connections and the Del Mar Foundation!

After years of adventures, including extensive travel through Europe in a camper van with four small children and a mother-in-law, Sarah was approached in the spring 1999 to be part of a group to plan an organization for seniors. She was still teaching at that time, but was ready to get her feet wet by attending some of the organizing meetings. By August 2000, DMCC had organized as a non-membership, non-profit, organization with Nancy Weare as President and Brooke Eisenberg-Pike managing the necessary filing of documents for the creation of DMCC, a viable organization.

Penny Abell took on the job of transportation chair, and it was she who asked Sarah to set up the Volunteer Driver Program.  According to Sarah, "Setting up that program is still the most challenging and satisfying project I have done in the many years I was active in the organization." At the time, DMCC had no office and no employees, but was able to establish a telephone line so that seniors could reserve rides. With the City of Del Mar's permission, DMCC installed the phone in the City Hall Annex. Sarah reported regularly to check the message machine.

Sarah is quick to mention a number of other individuals who were instrumental in getting DMCC off and running in the early years--Karen Lockwood, Mary Ann Emerson, Jerry Finnell, Florence Stevens, Joanne Sharp, Ann Silber, Teddy Hopper, and Charlotte Gumbrell, to name a few. A survey of seniors in Del Mar was designed and circulated; fundraising began in earnest; senior fitness classes and other events and activities were initiated; and a bus was leased from the Red Cross to use for the weekly grocery shuttle. Sarah reports, "That entire first year of DMCC's existence offered us heady times!"

In the fall of 2001, Sarah was invited to join DMCC's Board of Directors. The following spring, Jerry Finnell asked her to serve as president. According to Sarah, "I was 72 years old and had intended not to work at anything anymore once I finished teaching one more course. But Jerry was very persuasive, and on July 1, 2002, I assumed the top dog role in DMCC." At the time, Sarah was unaware she would also be joining DMCC's newly established Shared Housing Committee and spending many hours forging a plan of action with documents to be used in making Shared Housing matches. Because of Sarah's experience with DMCC's administration of the City's Shared Housing and Rental Assistance Programs, Sarah later chaired a DMCC committee charged with planning the administration of a Community Support Fund.

One of Sarah's fondest DMCC memories is when the organization purchased its own bus in 2003. She recalls that when the bus arrived, "with images from DMCC's logo painted on white background . . . almost all of us fell in love with DMCC, ourselves, each other and Del Mar in general."

Sarah's hard work and dedication over her many years of service to DMCC have helped make DMCC the wonderful organization it is today. Thank you, Sarah!