From UCLA Today: Campus volunteers

We may not be able to hear them — or perhaps we’re not listening hard enough — but there must be bells ringing somewhere for the four deserving members of the UCLA family who have been chosen for our fourth annual tribute to Bruin Angels.

These members of the university’s staff and faculty spend countless hours of their own time to help others. Whether it is as a crusader for personal health, a volunteer who traveled to foreign lands to build a school, a trainer of guide dogs for the blind or a doctor who donates his services in impoverished communities, each maintains the spirit of the season throughout the entire year.

We honor this year’s Bruin Angels, as well as the many others of whom we learned but whose stories we were unable to include on this page.

Bill Donnelly knows from personal experience that for most men prostate cancer is an issue they would prefer to not even think about. His father died of the disease after it spread beyond the prostate before the cancer was even diagnosed.

“A lot of men have a lack of information about prostate cancer and avoid dealing with the whole issue,” said Donnelly, director of the Inter-University Consortium on Child Welfare, located in the School of Public Policy and Social Welfare. Yet prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths among men in the United States.

After Donnelly himself was diagnosed with prostate cancer and successfully treated, thanks to early detection by annual screenings, he decided to reach out to help other men and their families faced with the same problem. A trained social worker, Donnelly volunteered with the American Cancer Society to spread information and awareness about the value of early diagnosis, screening and intervention. He is volunteer chair of the Los Angeles Regional Prostate Cancer Team, which generates awareness, outreach and education about the disease. Donnelly himself gives presentations to groups, trains men to become lay counselors for other men and provides volunteer counseling.

Donnelly tells groups of men that a simple, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test, in combination with the digital rectal exam, can lead to early detection. “All men should consider, in consultation with their doctor, annual screening, beginning at age 50 and at age 45 if you are high risk — with a history of prostate cancer or are African American,” he said. And statistics show the five-year survival rates have increased as more and more men are getting screened — thanks to the work of people like Donnelly.

Ever since she was 16, Patricia Jordan has made time for helping others — although she's hard-pressed to explain exactly what drives her so strongly.

“It’s really difficult to say why you help people,” said Jordan, now 24 and a membership services representative for the UCLA Alumni Association. “It’s just something that you have to do.”

This year alone, Jordan ran a marathon and raised $2,600 for AIDS Project Los Angeles, tutored students in conversational English at the International Student Center and volunteered to serve on the Distinguished Bruin Awards committee.

All those activities provided inspiration, she said, but one of her previous volunteer projects became a life-changing experience. In 1999, Jordan visited West Africa on a humanitarian mission through the nonprofit group Operation Crossroads Africa. For two months, she lived in Kusamai, a village in The Gambia, and helped build a school — brick by brick. “People don’t drive up with a truck and bricks,” Jordan said. “They taught us how to make the bricks.”

Jordan continues to help the school from afar. “It’s such an impoverished country, all the books that they had were Harlequin romances,” Jordan said. “So I organized a book drive at the Alumni Association.” She collected about 100 books and is now shipping them to the school at her expense.

“I need to feel like my life is of use,” Jordan said. “It’s not a selfless act at all. I get as much as I give.”

And Jordan — a theater major who received her bachelor’s degree from UCLA last year — has no plans to stop. Next up: she has applied for a two-year stint with the U.S. Peace Corps.

Sidney W. Penn never really retired form his nearly five-decade career in ophthalmology. At least twice a month, the 82-year-old Long Beach resident climbs aboard the Jules Stein Eye Institute's Mobile Eye Clinic to bring free eye care to young children from low-income families in Baldwin Park, Rosemead and Lawndale.

The 39-foot van, with two complete examining rooms, brings much-needed eye care to children and adults at elementary schools and community centers throughout the region. Many are children of immigrants with few resources and often little awareness of the importance of eye care.

In a typical year, some 4,000 young children and 1,000 teenagers, adults and seniors are examined aboard the Mobile Eye Clinic. About 30% need glasses or other ophthalmologic care. Glasses are provided at no charge.

“Some of the children at first are shy and frightened of what’s going on,” Penn explained. “I just allow them to watch how I’m treating the other children. Before you know it, they get interested and are ready to be examined. All the children appear to be happy and very inquisitive. They’re a delight to work with.”

Penn practiced ophthalmology in Long Beach from 1948 to 1996. He received an appointment as a clinical instructor in the UCLA School of Medicine’s Department of Ophthalmology in 1956 and remains affiliated with UCLA as an associate clinical professor at the Jules Stein Eye Institute.

In addition to his work with the Mobile Eye Clinic, Penn remains active with the community. He is a member of the National Conference on Community and Justice and sits on the board of the Long Beach Jewish Community Center. He also enjoys golfing once or twice a week and finds time to paint a bit.

Penn views his service aboard the mobile eye clinic as an opportunity to keep his professional skills sharp and his mind active. He also believes it’s important to give back to a community that has given him so much through the years.

“If you’re retired, don’t allow yourself to vegetate. Give something back to the community, take advantage of your knowledge,” Penn advised. “Take advantage of every opportunity you have while you’re still healthy and alive. Let your eulogy say not so much that ‘life was good to you, but you were good to life.’”

What better way for dog lover Rebecca Simons to make a contribution than as a volunteer for Guide Dogs for the Blind, Inc.

An administrative assistant for the UCLA arts outreach program, ArtsBridge, Simons recently finished raising her first guide dog, Pandita, an enthusiastic yellow lab/golden retriever mix. Now she is working with a new puppy, Jericho.

As a “raiser,” Simons and others like her teach their puppies basic skills. When the dogs, which are bred for their intelligence and friendliness, reach 12 to 14 months, they graduate to “dog college,” where their training is completed. The organization pays the first $50 in vet bills, but volunteers otherwise raise the dogs as if they were their own.

Working out of the Dean’s Office in the School of the Arts and Architecture, Simons can’t thank Dean Daniel Neuman enough for letting her bring her dog to work each day, which is an important part of socializing the dog. “Campus couldn’t be a better environment in terms of people and stairs, sounds, going in and out of buildings, riding the campus shuttle,” she said.

In fact, having her dog come to work not only benefits the animal, but her coworkers as well. When people are having a bad day, they come to visit Pandita. “It’s like dog therapy,” she said. And coworkers help in the training, too. “You can tell they were just as gratified training Pandita as I was,” said Simons, who plans to continue to train guide dogs for years to come.

Identified by their distinctive halter and jacket, guide-dogs-in-training and their raisers are often approached by strangers. “They’re good ambassadors. They help break the ice,” said Simons of the dogs. “And it educates people about the blind and shows folks that dogs can be more than pets. They’re going to have somebody’s life in tow.”