Santa Rosa jeweler Ame Van Dyke dazzles with nonprofit work

Ame Van Dyke keeps giving away the store.

Since the Santa Rosa native joined and refined the city’s oldest business, E.R. Sawyer Jewelers, six years ago, a tremendous amount of merchandise - lovely rings, pendants, diamonds - has gone out the door for free.

Go to a benefit event for homeless women and children, or for improved community health care or for any number of other local human causes and there’s a fair chance dollars will be raised by the auctioning or raffling of a piece of jewelry or a precious stone donated by E.R. Sawyer.

Admirers of Van Dyke, 46, say her generosity is stunning, but what really blows them away is that beyond contributing a very nice thing in a small package, she often can be found shopping or baking or setting up for a fundraising event, or having her entire family stay afterward to clean up.

“There is no job too big or two small for Ame Van Dyke,” said Madeleine Keegan O’Connell, chief of YWCA Sonoma County. “She rolls up her sleeves and gets the work done.”

Another beneficiary of Van Dyke’s twin gifts of jewelry and elbow grease is Cheryl Parkinson, who oversees The Living Room day-services center for women who struggle to get off the streets.

“She definitely takes the place of numerous volunteers,” Parkinson said. “And she always brings her whole family, which is wonderful. They all contribute.”

“To clone her would be perfect.”

The downtown jewelry store Van Dyke owns and runs with her husband, Doug, has been around and active in the community for a very long time. It began in 1879 as the late John Sawyer’s watch and clock shop and was given the name that stuck by Sawyer’s son and successor, Elbert R. Sawyer.

Doug Van Dyke’s maternal grandparents, Allan and Virginia Flood, became partners in the enterprise in 1949. He said the family business has long valued the importance of contributing to the community, but it was his wife who kicked the charitable and volunteer efforts into high gear.

Doug Van Dyke, who’s 52, said that these days, the store donates about 100 pieces of jewelry or gift certificates a year, worth almost $200,000. He credits his wife, the former Ame Bolander, who was born in Santa Rosa’s former Warrack Hospital, got her first job at 14 as a busgirl at Lena’s Italian restaurant and - prior to becoming a Van Dyke - worked in the private dining club business.

“Ame really is the driving force,” Doug Van Dyke said.

His wife said she does what she does in the community largely because she knows her and Doug’s four children are watching.

“We think it’s so important to show our kids this is how the world goes ’round,” she said, adding that she and Doug want community involvement and service “to be part of their fiber.”

Both Van Dykes said it looks to be working; their children - Bradyn, 20; Andrew, 15; Alivia, 13, and Paris, 11 - think it’s fun to help pull off a benefit supper or garden party or golf tournament.

At The Living Room, director Parkinson appreciates having jewelry from Ame Van Dyke to generate donations at a benefit event, but she celebrates having Van Dyke herself there. Parkinson said the jewel of a volunteer works hard, organizes beautifully and recruits others - “and she always does it with a smile and so nicely. Her attitude is so great. We can be in the middle of the most chaotic event preparation and she is cool, calm and collected.”

The YWCA’s O’Connell said Van Dyke “has a generosity of heart and spirit that is unmatched in our community.

“And she’s just tons of fun.”

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