SaddleBrooke Community Outreach has honored two outstanding volunteers, Alice Maitland and JoAnn Livingston, as Volunteers of the Year for 2024-25.
Alice Maitland is one of four co-managers of Kids’ Closet, a SaddleBrooke Community Outreach Organization (SBCO) program that supplies children in the Copper Corridor (between Oracle and Superior) from preschool to eighth grade with school clothing and books. In addition to Kids’ Closet, Alice volunteers as a receptionist at the SBCO office, and at Teen Closet, which provides shopping nights in January/February and July to students in the ninth to twelfth grades. In the summer months, when Kids’ Closet is closed, she serves at Tri-Community Food Bank in Mammoth.
Jo Ann Livingston’s career left little time for volunteer activities; she remedied that by throwing herself into a myriad of activities upon moving in 2011 to SaddleBrooke with her late husband, David. Jo Ann has volunteered for Kids’ Closet, the Golden Goose Thrift Shop, SBCO Walk for Kids, the annual SBCO Food Drive, and as a docent for the SBCO Home Tour!
She has used her experience in business management to further the mission of the Golden Goose, first as a board member, and later as vice president and then president of the board. “I started out as a volunteer for Kids’ Closet; it was just so gratifying to see a child’s excitement at getting a new pair of shoes,” says Jo Ann. “However, I decided I could be of more value helping the Golden Goose increase revenues and work toward its future success.” It has obviously paid off as the staff and volunteers generated revenues of over two million dollars in 2023!
This honor is significant for an all-volunteer organization that relies upon hundreds of volunteers to implement its programs to feed, clothe, enrich and educate youngsters living in the Copper Corridor. In fact, in the 2022-23 fiscal year, SBCO volunteers contributed 72,582 hours of their time – an amount that at the national average hourly rate of $31.80 represented an eye-popping $2,308,093 in free labor.
