North Bay cyclists to cross U.S. to promote action on homelessness

Someone turning 90 might not be the easiest person to shop for.

As a friend in Sebastopol wrestled with how best to recognize her father’s 90th birthday, she recalled hearing this: The daughter of a man turning 80 had asked family members, friends and others if they might commit an act of kindness in tribute to her dad, and send her a note describing the deed.

My friend and her sister decided to do the same for their pop, a man who’s done much throughout his life to help others and to make the world a bit of a better place.

So far, they’ve received word of the completion of about 70 deeds performed in their father’s honor. The sisters get choked up reading them.

One benefactor wrote, “I committed to playing hammer dulcimer music for blood cancer patents and their families at UCSF Medical Center on Sunday afternoons.”

One reported, “I’m building tree dome reefs with a reef restoration organization on the northern shore of the Dominican Republic. One for each of my kids and one for your dad!”

Another drove to that fabulous strawberry patch between Santa Rosa and Sebastopol, bought two flats of sweet, ripe berries and delivered them to the kitchen crews that feed kids and adults at Catholic Charities’ Family Support Center shelter, and all who enter the nearby dining room run by St. Vincent de Paul.

A well-wisher good with numbers “prepared income-tax returns for my 73-year-old employee and my 90-plus-year-old neighbors because they couldn’t do it them themselves and they needed help.”

Another recipient of the sisters’ request told of being in Germany and witnessing the Syrian refugee crisis: “Refugees are THE big subject in Europe presently. Today I made a donation of €50 … to support refugees … I wanted to do this to contribute to your ‘good deeds list’ in honor of your father’s 90th birthday.”

On his birthday in a few days, my friend’s dad will receive this: a binder containing accounts and some photos of the 90 acts of kindness performed out in the world in his honor.

It’s a gift he’s unlikely to return, or to stuff into a drawer and forget.

HHHHHH

ED BUONACCORSI knows it will be painful, probably sometimes miserable, to pedal a bicycle clear across the country.

But Ed, a retired Santa Rosa and Sonoma County government administrator, expects that the ride he’s about to take will be a piece of cake compared to living in the bushes or under a bridge.

Now 63, Ed grew up in Santa Rosa and watched homelessness grow into a vast and harrowing human tragedy.

A link to the crisis: When Ed was a kid at Montgomery High, his internally tormented mother died after setting their house on fire. He remembers the Red Cross putting the rest of his family up at the motel on Santa Rosa Avenue that is now The Palms, a place for homeless veterans and others.

Tuesday, he, Paula Shimizu, a retired county general services manager, and retired Marin County firefighter Don Keylon will launch a ride from Astoria, Ore., to Yorktown, Va.

They intend along the way to build awareness of homelessness and encourage folks to go onto Codebluesonoma.org and consider if there’s something they can contribute to solutions or to easing the anguish of people living on the streets.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.