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Volunteers start at early age

Mary Thompson

Volunteerism doesn’t have to wait until you’re an adult.

That’s the message special education teacher Larry Lambdin is sending to students at South Tahoe Middle School.

Lambdin heads up Club Live, a statewide program that promotes a drug- and alcohol-free lifestyle for youth. Lambdin said the power in the program works through keeping students busy with field trips, student leadership projects and community service activities.



“At this point it’s very important that they get involved in the community at a very young age so that they understand giving back to the community and that they are not always taking,” he said. “Hopefully it will turn out to be a lifelong endeavor for (students) that they will always think of other people who might not have been as fortunate as they were.”

More than 20 members of Club Live turned up at 75-year-old Harry Walker’s house on Saturday to give him a helping hand.



Walker, who has an injured foot that prevents him from performing heavy work around the house, said he needed the help.

“I can’t do much of anything because I’ve got a bad foot,” he said. “I’ve gotten behind on everything around the house, inside and out.”

In addition to his injured foot, Walker said he has very little time to devote to house work. Instead, he said he spends most of his time at Barton Memorial Hospital visiting his wife, Nancy, who has been in the Skilled Nursing Center for 18 months.

“Someone from the hospital must have called the kids to come over,” he said. “They did a very good job, I’m surprised they picked up so many bags of pine needles. There must be 30 bags out there.”

That’s 63 bags of pine needles to be exact, says Veronica Rosales, an eighth-grade student in her second year as a Club Live member.

“I think he really needed some help picking up his yard,” she said. “It was pretty thick.”

Rosales said the group cleaned up the middle school grounds before heading over to Walker’s yard. All the work, she says, doesn’t bother her.

“It makes me feel good that we help people,” she said.

Lambdin said the next events scheduled for more than 100 Club Live members includes fund-raising events for the Alliance for the Mentally Ill and adopting needy families during Christmastime.

Lorelei Gettman, a Club Live member, said she believes these are the club’s most important events.

“When we have Christmas we get all these new things and some people don’t get as much as we do,” the 11-year-old said. “Helping them is nice.”


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