Cool Davis has been growing and learning throughout 2019. We now have four staff members and an ever increasing cadre of volunteers, advisors, and experts to help us along our way. It is no exaggeration that Cool Davis would not “be” without the volunteer support we get from our community. In the spirit of gratitude, and knowing that appreciation is good for the giver as well as the receiver, here are some heartfelt thank you’s to some of most valuable volunteers this year.

Thanks to . . .

UC Davis interns Amy Joo and Nayelie Quezada: This quarter, Nayelie has been an invaluable assistant for our campaign and communications activities, primarily for electric vehicles. She began by volunteering at our EVs@theMarket event, and has continued to provide outreach at other Farmer’s Market pop-ups and a Fall Feast with our Mutual Housing partners. She is friendly and personable with our staff and volunteers. Nayelie has assisted with reporting on these events and post-event processing of survey data. In addition, she has reviewed and summarized various articles and information (for instance, regarding EV uptake in multi-family housing).

Cool Davis volunteer Yvonne Hunter receiving a City of Davis Environmental Sustainability Award in 2019.

Intern Amy Joo worked primarily on our solar campaign this quarter, authoring an article about tax credits, creating some memes, analyzing our solar stories, and probably most fun, updating the solar display at Davis City Hall. We are grateful for Amy’s kindness and persistence and wish her well in her last quarters at UC Davis. A big THANK YOU to both our interns!

Yvonne Hunter: Sometimes to get something done you must have a person who sticks with a project tenaciously. Completing this year’s test of our a Heating and Cooling campaign was due to Yvonne Hunter’s determination and professionalism. Because of her confident and wise preparation for next steps and reporting of our work together, Cool Davis is in a great position to move forward in 2020!

Larissa Lomen: Larissa Lomen is a super efficient web assistant who handles our crossposts. Larissa came to us well regarded from Tree Davis, our office buddies, even though she now resides in southern Caifornia. Larissa recently found full-time work but expects to continue to have time for Cool Davis into the future.

Lynne Nittler: Lynne is a founding board member for Cool Davis and a major donor.  She has continued to make lots of contributions in the form of research, writing, event support, and pretty much anything else we could hope for.  She was instrumental in bringing together the group that worked with the City to draft the City of Davis Climate Emergency Resolution this past March. She is a leading member of the Yolo Interfaith Alliance for Environmental Justice, a working group of Cool Davis, Yolo Move On, Raging Grannies, and regularly contributes to the Coalition with her time and help for meetings and events.  Her unfailing support of our youth and young adult advocates in their many actions and events should be applauded by everyone in our community.

Cool Davis volunteer Larissa Lomen helps with behind the scenes web content delivery.

Olga Levitsky: Olga is a recovering executive looking to move towards more fulfilling and sustainable pursuits. She spent several sessions evaluating our communications offerings and providing useful feedback and some creative ideas. We are super appreciative for her time and expertise in helping us improve!

Johannes Troost: Sometimes a volunteer shows up at just the right time. Johannes has been willing to be the jack of all organizational systems since he arrived on the scene last spring. As we expand staff and volunteer activities, our systems must expand as well. He has  helped with retrofitting old PC equipment and sleuthing options for project management software as well as tech for a new in-house network. He has developed diagrams to explain our campaigns, and waited patiently to help with our new Cool Homes database. Finally, he agreed to serve on our board operations committee. His help and “care”-ful approach has been invaluable as we get ready to scale up our campaigns.

Marsha Baird: Our day to day success is often highly dependent on the steady work of those behind the scenes. We so appreciate the positive and grounded perspective that Marsha brings to just making sure our data and communications tools are working. As we have added new staff this year, Marsha is training them and an abundance of new volunteers in the use of these systems. She has taken on these new tasks with such grace.  We are so grateful for her wisdom and focus on the details.

And, oh, by the way, she could use a few right hand people to keep our systems clean and operating smoothly. If you have some time and like behind the scenes date cleanup please join the team! HTML-fluent volunteers are especially needed! Email volunteer@cooldavis.org.

Cool Davis volunteers Barbara and Robert are two of several hardworking DEVA leaders! Photo credit Johan Verink.

DEVA Leaders: Tim Tutt, Robert Poeschel, Barbara Gardner, Sandra Hall, Guy Hall, Katrina Sutton, and Jim Wilson. If you’re wondering about the energy behind the six DEVA meetings this year and ten electric vehicle (EV) pop-ups on 3rd Saturdays, including our flagship EVs@theMarket during Drive Electric week each September, it’s this amazing team of EV enthusiasts! Partnered with Cool Davis staff, these indispensable folks bring a steady stream of practical knowledge and timely advice to the EV “curious” in our community.  Please join us in thanking Robert for his data support and pop-up organizing, Barbara for arranging for food for DEVA meetings, and Tim, Sandra, Guy, Katrina and Jim for planning and leading the meetings! If we hit the 2020 goal of over 2500 EVs in our community by this time next year, it will be due to their efforts. Remember to thank them when you see them!

Katie Mednick: Katie has been a guest chef and recipe contributor for about a year and a half now. She picked up our content management system quickly and has mastered the finer points of image sizing as well. Plus, her recipes are both delicious and beautiful! If you haven’t found a vegan latke recipe yet, @coconut-katie has got you covered. Katie works for Integrative Medicine at UC Davis and is pursuing a career in Nutrition.

Michael Kluk: Michael has been with Cool Davis researching, writing, and brainstorming for nearly four years. His commitment to a carbon neutral life plays out in every article he writes. We appreciate his availability, flexibility, and intelligence. We can always count on Michael for quality work and thoughtful treatments.

Johan Verink: Johan is a retired wastewater engineer from the Netherlands who has been seeking answers to the most difficult questions for years, in particular, how to establish a single indicator for climate change. He takes amazing photos and is always ready for a new assignment. We appreciate his smile and persistent energy!

Raging Grannies. Sometimes in this work you just got a sing!  The Raging Grannies always bring a little levity and whimsy to our activities and events (Picnic Day Parade, Earth Day, EVs@theMarket).  We ask and they arrive in their costumes and with their new verses crafted around familiar tunes. Thanks for adding your little bit of fun to our work this year!

Anya McCann. If you liked last spring’s Burger Battle and and all those tasty plant-based burger options, thank Anya McCann. Anya is the brains and energy behind COOL Cuisine, a working group of the Cool Davis Coalition and partner of Cool Davis. She accomplished so much in 2019, and we’re looking forward the next plant-based adventure in 2020!

Eva Dopico: All of us here at Cool Davis are devastated at the loss of our brightest volunteer, Eva Dopico. Despite a busy life as teacher and wife, swimmer, dancer, and origami jewelry master, she readily agreed to prance, smile, and pass our flyers for our solar campaign, electric vehicle events, and other activities. We grieve for all of those folks across our community who relied on her for warmth, compassion, and clarity. She will live on in our hearts.

Shining Eva Dopico and some friends at EVs@theMarket 2019. Photo credit Johan Verink.

Cool Davis appreciates all the volunteers who make this organization tick! If we missed you, we ever so humbly request your forgiveness. We are hard working folks and we sometimes make mistakes.

If you are looking for a passionate team that works every day to make Davis a better place to live, Cool Davis  is always looking for more volunteers to help us raise our gratitude quotient and improve everyone’s karma (a few hours a month is sometimes all we need). Email volunteer@cooldavis.org.