In Alaska, community organizers have real responsibilities
The volunteer workers have been honored at the highest level of state government for making a difference.
ANCHORAGE — There's nothing unusual about the kind of work Bonny Sosa did in Alaska. She, like hundreds of people in Southern California and every region in the country, saw a problem in her community and tried to fix it.
The diabetes rate among children was disturbingly high, said Sosa's husband, Sam Young. So, in 2003, he and Sosa called everyone they knew, met with school administrators and public officials, and formed a grass-roots group called Healthy Futures to teach nutrition and organize outdoor activities for children.
"Bonny changed the way Anchorage thinks and plays in such a positive way," a city official said when Sosa died in August at age 50, just a few days after being diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Only a few weeks after her death, Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, ridiculed Sen. Barack Obama for his days as a community organizer. She and other GOP operatives belittled the very idea of such work.
All I could figure was that one of two things was going on here: Either this was another example of the dishonest and sleazy stuff served up in political campaigns by folks on both sides of the aisle. Or Alaska must not have any community organizers.
Judging by what I found in Anchorage, it's the former.
Debbie Hinchey, Sosa's sister, is another longtime do-gooder. When I reached her by phone, she told me she had just come home from refurbishing a city rose garden, as a volunteer, when she heard the cracks about community organizers.
"It was pretty much of a slap in the face," she said.
When I first began asking around town for the names of community organizers, people quickly mentioned Mark Butler. He's the manager of the Anchorage Federation of Community Councils, a nonprofit that is somewhat similar to the neighborhood councils we have in Los Angeles.
Butler assists 38 councils made up of volunteers who work on everything from gang-related crime and housing-related issues to business district improvements and park expansion.
You need speed bumps to slow down traffic?
These are the guys to call.
Young toughs with guns hanging out in the local park?
These folks can get the cops rolling.
Butler's office is in the same building as Big Brothers and Big Sisters, AIDS intervention and senior support agencies. I can't imagine Gov. Palin really meant to disparage all these folks.
