The Calaveras Co. Commission on Aging has named Sally Tuttle the Female Volunteer of the Year in a ceremony attended by all County Supervisors. Sally was nominated by the AAUW, as was the Male Volunteer of the year, Tim Folenorf, of Angels Camp.
This is a big deal and we are proud to have our extraordinary Sally recognized!
"AAUW nominates Sally Tuttle of Mokelumne Hill for Female Senior of the Year in recognition of her almost fifty years of volunteer service in Calaveras County.
Sally’s summer job through college was counseling at Woodhaven Girl Scout Camp. While attending UC Berkeley, she volunteered to lead a Senior Girl Scout troop in Redwood City meeting with her girls every two weeks with an overnight at camp once a month. After graduation, she went to work for the Sequoia Girl Scout Council in Redwood City. As a Field Director she worked with many, many volunteers. She respected them for their volunteer work and realized that volunteering could make a life far more interesting, especially if you felt the work was important and fulfilling.
Sally married attorney Dick Tuttle, a widower with children ages 2, 4 and 6. They had two more children. As a busy wife and mother of five, Sally has always found time to volunteer in her community.
The Tuttle family moved to Calaveras County in 1960 with their school-age children, and Sally’s volunteer activities began.
· Running a summer children’s Day Camp on property close to the bridge on Highway 49 below Mokelumne Hill
· Becoming the first President of the Calaveras County Friends of the Library, which she helped organize with fellow AAUW members
In 1962 the seven-member Tuttle family moved to San Francisco while Dick was Chief Consul to the California Public Utility Commission, the PUC, In 1965 they moved to Jackson, Mississippi. Dick had been asked to head The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law, an organization that President Kennedy began to bring some justice to the segregated state. Even with her five children, Sally the volunteer got busy.
· Tutoring black children who were integrating an elementary school
· Helping in the Civil Rights office
· Cooking dinners for volunteer lawyers coming from all parts of the country
In 1966 The Tuttles moved to Brookline Mass where Dick had been asked to be a Kennedy Fellow in the Kennedy School of Politics at Harvard. They returned to Mokelumne Hill in1967 where they had always had a home to come home to.. Sally’s county volunteer work began again.
· Successfully working with a group to bring more music and art education to high school and elementary students
· President of the Mokelumne Hill School Parents Club
· Offering the Junior Great Books program to sixth and seventh graders at Mokelumne Hill School and continuing the classes in her home during the summer
· Taking the Red Cross Water Safety Instructors (WSI) course in order to teach swimming and lifesaving at the Calaveras High School pool
· Becoming Chairman of the Calaveras County Democratic Central Committee and President of the Democratic Women’s Club
· After 1982, becoming President of the Calaveras County Friends of the Library again
· In 1988, as President of the Friends, working on Measure A for an improved county library. Measure A included a $19.00 parcel tax that had to be approved by 2/3 of the voters. It failed in a close election.
· In the early 1990s, volunteering to chair the fund raising drive for the $2,800,000 Calaveras County Library. Her efforts raised almost $700,000 with the help of volunteer workers. There is a small park behind the library dedicated to “Sally Tuttle and the Friends of the Library” in recognition of their work in providing the citizens of the county with the state-of-the-art Calaveras County Library.
· After the Library was built, becoming President of the Calaveras County Friends of the Library again; and volunteering there: checking out books, putting on holds, and helping people find books and materials.
· Representing Calaveras County on the multi-county 49/99 Library System Board
· Over ten years ago, heading the county’s Friends of the Library Literacy Program. She worked with the State Library to bring the county program under the umbrella of the State Library Literacy Program. Using volunteer tutors, the program has helped hundreds of County residents learn to read or read better. The students have also improved their math, writing, and computer skills. Some have earned their GED degree with the help of the program.
· Appointed by the California State Senate to the State Library Board called the Library of California. The Library of California’s mission is to bring all of the state’s libraries together to share books and other library materials and open all libraries to the public. There are 8000 libraries in the state: school, private, academic, and public libraries. Sally traveled throughout the state for meetings of the Library of California and served as its President. Her two terms on the board were up in 2007.
· While on the state board, she helped Mokelumne Hill Library become part of the Calaveras County Library System. She organized the Friends of the Mokelumne Hill Library. With a bequest from a Mokelumne Hill resident, a building was purchased, renovated, and given to the county to become part of the County System. Sally hosted a fundraiser at her home to raise money for the furnishings.
· As a member of AAUW, for years she was involved with our Calaveras Scholarship Trust interviewing students at Calaveras and Bret Harte High Schools for our awards.
Sally’s current volunteer activities include the following:
· After the Mokelumne Hill Library opened, she has volunteered every Friday for almost ten years, being the sole person there.
· Board member of the Mokelumne Hill Community Trust, which is the Friends of the Mokelumne Hill Library support group
· Library representative on the board of the Mokelumne Hill History Society. The Society is the trustee of the funds left from the bequest mentioned above. She is the treasurer of those funds of about $100,000.
· While she was appointed to the Library of California, she joined the Friends of the Bancroft Library at her alma mater, UC Berkeley. She was appointed to the Events Committee. She has arranged three Bancroft Library programs in Mokelumne Hill, including a reception in her home on Sport Hill where the Bear and Bull Fights took place during the Gold Rush.
· Member of the Calaveras County Library Commission, a Board of Supervisors appointment. The Commission meets monthly working with the County Librarian in all aspects of improving library service to the residents of the County
· President of the Friends of the Mokelumne Hill Library
· Active in the West Calaveras Democratic Club. She hosted a successful fundraiser for Barack Obama in September in her garden and held an Inaugural party at her home.
· Over a year ago she saw the need to clean the county’s library books. She founded a group of volunteers called The Dirty Book Club. The new circulation system gives a receipt when materials are checked-out. The old system involved placing due-date stickers on the back of all materials. The almost 50 member Dirty Book Club meets at the library in San Andreas for two hours once a month and removes stickers and cleans the outside of the books. Sally is in charge – she recruits members, reminds the volunteers each month of the meeting, brings the cleaning supplies, and designates which materials are to be cleaned. It has taken over a year to do the children’s books. The Club will meet until the 50,000 books in the central library are cleaned. The seven branches are gradually cleaning the books in their library.
AAUW is proud to nominate our fellow member Sally Tuttle as Calaveras County Female Senior of the Year 2009. She has been devoted to serving her community wherever she has lived. For almost fifty years, she has volunteered in Calaveras County working with children and adults, bettering our community. Today, Sally is still working tirelessly for the benefit of the public.
BY THE CALAVERAS BRANCH OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN
