On Thursday, January 29, over 90 volunteers joined us for an evening of crafts, treats and celebration at our Winter Volunteer Appreciation Party. Attendees hand-crafted their own reflective button and collaged spoke cards (laminated on the spot) while imbibing tasty brews donated by New Belgium Brewing and nibbling on exquisite caramels and toffee donated by Littlejohn’s Candies.
We were also thrilled to present our 2014 volunteer awards. We are incredibly thankful to the nearly 1,000 volunteers who last year collectively gave over 11,000 hours of their time to help keep the wheels of advocacy spinning and help make San Francisco a safer city for biking and living. Our 2014 awards were a chance to look back and recognize six volunteers who truly went above and beyond in supporting our work last year:
Most Active Member: Cathy Kora (henceforth known as the Cathy Kora award)
The SF Bicycle Coalition staff knows Cathy Kora is our most active member year after year. This year we finally gave her an award for it. She attends or volunteers at all of our major events, speaks up at SFMTA Board Meetings and washes dishes at every Volunteer Night. In recognition of how thoroughly she’s dominated SF Bicycle Coalition membership engagement over the years, next year we’ll be giving this award to whoever comes in 2nd place, but we’ll name it after her.
Most Active Ambassador: Winifred Olliff
Winifred volunteered as a Bicycle Ambassador on 11 different occasions in 2014, and was a fantastic Bike to Work Day Captain. She even volunteered at a Bike Politely event along the Embarcadero, even though she’d been injured in a crash and had her arm in a sling. She’s also a Winterfest Artist! How does she do it?
Most Active Bike Parker: Alex Heeger
Alex has been a steadfast volunteer since at least 2009, and he completed 48 hours of volunteering in 2014 alone! Our Valet Bike Parking program parks over 15,000 bikes at over 100 events annually, and it just wouldn’t be possible without the help of super-reliable, gung-ho volunteers like Alex. Alex is in great company, but he takes the prize for most active Valet volunteer in 2014.
Special Project Award: Jean Kao
Did you notice sfbike.org got a major overhaul in 2014? That’s thanks in no small part to longtime volunteer Jean, who joined us as a pro bono project manager. The website looks and works great, and the design company, Visceral, even won a prize. Wow! Jean also joined us this year at events such as Winterfest, Bike the Vote, Tour de Fat, Golden Wheel, Bike to Work Day (as an Energizer Station Captain) and more.
Rookie of the Year: Ken Lumnaokrut
Ken first volunteered with the SF Bicycle Coalition in 2014, and went on to be not only our most active new volunteer in 2014, but one of our most active volunteers overall last year. He donated nearly 80 hours of his time to projects including Volunteer Night, Winterfest, Tour de Fat, Valet Bike Parking, Golden Wheel Awards, Bike to Work Day, Bike It Forward events, data entry in the office, and more! Ken has a fantastic attitude and we’re keeping our fingers crossed that he’ll keep volunteering just as much even though he’s not a rookie any more.
All-round All-star: Amy Chen
One of Amy’s first interests in our work was the Polk Street campaign. In 2014, she became active in many areas of our work, whether it was taking a day off work to attend a full-day SFMTA Board retreat back in February, volunteering at Winterfest at our Women Bike SF table or attending all different committee meetings for our campaign work.
The SF Bicycle Coalition holds Volunteer Appreciation Parties twice per year, and everyone who’s volunteered in the previous six months is invited to attend. That’s just one of many great reasons to join us as a volunteer: Check out our upcoming projects, and sign up today!
