Congratulations Rio Vista Residents Honored at Senior Coalition of Solano County Living Legacy Award Ceremony

Congratulations Rio Vista Residents Honored at Senior Coalition of Solano County Living Legacy Award Ceremony

Solano County identified and honored outstanding Solano County seniors at an award ceremony on May 23, 2012 at the Ulatis Cultural Center in Vacaville. This year 24 individuals received awards specific to their contribution. Honoring individuals who have spent their lives help¬ing others is extremely important and hearing their accomplishment inspires and reconnects us to our own possi¬bilities. To the Senior Coalition committee led by Rochelle Sherlock and all involved in mak¬ing this event possible, thank you for doing a great job! Also, special thanks to Donnelly De-signs and Rio Vista Flo¬rist for providing long-stem red roses dressed with purple ribbons to each of the awardees.

Rio Vista’s Joy Augusto and Araminta Black¬welder were honored for their contributions to our community.
Joy Augusto received the Community Spirit Award. Joy has been dedicated to helping others all of her life. As a professional business woman and mother of five children, Joy participated in the PTA, holding various leader¬ship positions, and became involved in AFS (formerly the American Field Ser¬vice) in 1970 when her family hosted an exchange student. Joy continued to support and participate in AFS for at least 30 years.

She has been a member of Eastern Star and the First Congregational Church in Rio Vista for over 60 years. She taught Sunday school and over the years she has been an active member of various women’s groups within the church.

She has participated in and chaired the candy making committee for Harvest Festival for as long as anyone can re¬member and served on the Board of Trustees for years.
Joy has always been an avid supporter of children, mothers and families. She volunteered for com¬munity activities such as Mother’s March of Dimes, Lodi Memorial Hospital Auxiliary group, Petit Sirah in Rio Vista, and was a Lodi Memorial Pink Lady.

She has been an active member of Soroptimist International of Rio Vista since 1975. She has served in several capacities with¬in the organization and is known as the clubs histo¬rian and best parliamentar¬ian the club has had.

During the flood in 1972 she volunteered. She participated in creating the Rio Vista Museum. She was active in the River Delta Historical Society for over 30 years as part of the founding group.
Joy is an amazing woman! She has a heart of a teenager, the spirit of the Energizer Bunny, who just keeps going and going always putting her family and commu¬nity above all else.
Araminta Blackwelder received the Building Bridges Award. Aramin¬ta has been a supporter and volunteer in Rio Vista and the Sacramen¬to Delta communities since the late sixties.
As a community leader, Araminta always had her finger on the pulse on the community. In the early 1980’s, she gathered a group of local leaders to help spearhead an effort to bring an organization that could provide counseling ser¬vices. This organization was founded in 1985 and became known as Rio Vista CARE, a non-prof¬it family resource center.

Araminta was the driving force behind all of the good work that CARE has done. She initially served as the agency’s volunteer and later became it’s Execu¬tive Director. She was a master at garnering local support, building great fund raising events, and negotiating with school boards. She helped create volunteer programs such as the PALS mentoring program for elementary schools and a support group at Rio Vista High School. She expanded programs to other schools in the River Delta Unified School District, includ¬ing Isleton and Walnut Grove.

Araminta looked for opportunities to expand services at CARE. This included outreach to isolated and underserved agricultural working families living in sur¬rounding areas.
In the late 80’s Ara¬minta approached the City to see if they would be interested in award¬ing community service grants, modeled on programs in other larger Solano cities. The coun¬cil agreed and set aside money for local service grants.

Araminta never slowed down in all her years. When many others of her age had long ago retired, she was still drumming up sponsors for CARE’s an¬nual Gala, networking and writing grants. She also accepted a coveted nomi¬nation to join the Ameri¬can Leadership Forum (ALF). Araminta retired in 2011.The community awaits an announcement of the next chapter in what is already a magnificent life and career.
Constance Boulware

Posted by admin on Jun 12 2012. Filed under Event, Lifestyle, Weekly Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry