May 25, 2004

YMCA Honors Teen and Adult Volunteers

Daniel Santos and Antoinette Contrereas were honored as the East Valley Family YMCA’s “Volunteers of the Year” at the YMCA Annual Volunteer Recognition Dinner May 11.

Adult Volunteer of the Year
Daniel Santos is a tireless fundraiser, generous donor and a role model for the youth that participate at the branch. He began his involvement with the East Valley Family YMCA after experiencing the loss of his 23-year old son, Marcio, in an accident. Daniel was so profoundly affected by this incident, that he began volunteering at the East Valley Family Y to carry on the memory of his son.

Now, two years later, Santos is a member of the branch’s board of managers and sits on many committees. He sees himself as an asset builder and has forged many friendships at the branch. Members, staff and especially teens at the Y know Santos and enthusiastically greet him whenever they see him.

Santos provides leadership and guidance to key branch committees and the Community Support Campaign. He personally has contributed over $30,000 and over $10,000 in in-kind donations to the campaign. He was chair of a Triangle Associates team that raised over $80,000 toward Y scholarships and subsidies. A member of the Heritage Club, he is ensuring that his heritage with the YMCA will live on.

Santos also is chair of the membership and Triangle Associates committees and serves on the executive and financial development committees. In addition, he donates his time to the association’s property committee. His goal as chair of the membership committee is to increase the development of other volunteers and focus on membership involvement and retention.

He also volunteers with Live Oak Adult Service, San Jose High School, Groupo Cultural de Carnaval Portugues and the Banda Portuges de San Jose. He is a father of six and also a grandfather.

Teen Volunteer of the Year
Contrereas, a junior at Mt. Pleasant High school, started volunteering at the East Valley Family YMCA by helping with the preschool. In the summer of 2001, she made a conscious decision to empower youth through volunteer work with the YMCA. She began volunteering with kids in Y preschool and for the past three years with Y-Achievers, Teen Voices, Youth and Government, the Teen Steering Committee and the East Valley Family YMCA Teen Center.

Contrereas be-lieves that the YMCA’s mission includes all people. To ensure that those who might not be able to afford Y programs could still participate, she became team captain of the “Teen/Parent Co-op” team with a goal to raise $1,500 this year for subsidies and scholarships.

In addition, Contrereas has helped raise money for all teen programs through car washes, dinners and bake sales. She saw a need at her branch and created “Big Buddy/Little Buddy,” a new program that helps pre-school kids with assets, homework and study time and social activities.

Contrereas believes that raising self-esteem in youth is essential to their development and because of this, has volunteered as a youth camp leader at Campo Alegre. She reaches out to teens using the 41 developmental assets as a guideline and regularly attends asset conferences and seminars. Following all-day workshops at the Healthy Communities/Health Youth Asset Conference in October, she spent the rest of her evening at the East Valley Family Y, helping to organize a family event.