Volunteers

Whether by necessity or choice, a quarter of Americans take at least one vacation by themselves each year. Some solo travelers are single. Some have partners who dislike travel or have different interests or can't get away. Some just crave freedom. But all face the same question: What's the best trip for the person traveling alone? "The key is to know yourself," said Beth Whitman, author of a guide for women traveling alone and founder of Wanderlustandlipstick.com , a website devoted to advice and tours for women on the go. "There are times when you just need to get away, to recuperate.

The teenager showed up in a panic on Thursday, cradling a wounded puppy in arms spattered with blood. A stray dog had attacked his 2-month-old pit bull on a walk near their South Los Angeles home. The city animal shelter nearby was the only place he knew to go. He ran over to Amanda Casarez, pleading for help. She took one look at the puppy's bloody gash and pulled out her cellphone. Within hours the pup was in surgery, the vet bill guaranteed by strangers from a pool of volunteers working with Downtown Dog Rescue, which sponsors an intervention program at the shelter.

Glendale officials will soon recruit volunteers to replace naturalists the city laid off last year for budget reasons. The volunteers will provide public education and help patrol more than 5,000 acres of city parklands to report damage or unsafe conditions. "This will not be your average volunteer program," because it will require training and strong skills, Community Services and Parks Director Jess Duran told the Glendale City Council. The program will be modeled on similar ones in the Santa Monica Mountains and Oakland's East Bay Regional Park.

JULIAN, Calif. - To the outside world, this mountain hamlet in northeast San Diego County is best known for apple pie, snow during the holiday season and bed-and-breakfasts that cater to romantic flatlanders. For many of its 1,500 residents, however, the essence of their community is represented not by the delights that await tourists but by the dedication and heroism of the volunteer fire department that has guarded their homes and businesses for four decades. In Southern California's never-ending fight against backcountry, wind-driven brush fires, Julian is on the front lines.

Residents and business managers looking for ways to make their city prettier now have their chance. The city's Beautification-Environmental Commission is launching a campaign to draw in volunteers and get them "Painting Buena Park Beautiful." Organizers hope the program, which initially is being funded through a $5,000 federal block grant, eventually will be fully funded and staffed by community volunteers. Based on similar programs in Anaheim and other cities, the group will help homeowners who are unable to paint their homes because of physical or financial problems.

SECRET SPOTS OF THE WEST We asked you to nominate your favorite vacation places in the West -- your travel touchstones, so to speak -- and you came back with a satchel full of suggestions. We sifted and sorted and chose six to explore for ourselves. Marvelous or mundane? You be the judge. -- "It's so peaceful there. It's just such a beautiful place to go," says Michele Johnson of Los Angeles, in nominating the Best Friends Animal Society's sanctuary in Utah. THE SETTING Angel Canyon, a postcard-perfect, rust-colored sandstone canyon outside of Kanab, Utah, is home to the Best Friends animal sanctuary, said to be the country's largest no-kill animal shelter.

After a hot morning of work, David Kahn and his farmhands sat down to lunch at a long wooden table on the porch. Today's feast featured a salad of juicy heirloom tomatoes picked from vines just a few feet away, pasta and pesto made with homegrown cilantro, and a crusty loaf of wheat bread baked the day before in an outdoor clay oven. If there are any doubts about the viability of Edendale Farm ? which Kahn built, improbably, on a sloping half acre smack in the middle of a swanky Silver Lake neighborhood ?

At a Starbucks in South Los Angeles, 14-year-old Bill Kirkpatrick III sat down with his mentor, Joe Egender, to set goals for the coming year. On the teen's to-do list for 2011: maintain a 3.0 or higher grade-point average, become a better role model for his 8-year-old brother, make it as a starter for the school basketball team and be "the flower that grew from concrete" ? a reference to a poem by the late rapper Tupac Shakur. FOR THE RECORD: Big Brothers: An article in the Feb. 21 LATExtra about the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization said Joe Egender took his "little brother" Bill Kirkpatrick III to see Dr. Dre in concert.

When Ellie Vargas of Woodland Hills feels anxious about earthquakes, she comforts herself with this image: thousands of rescue workers in pea-colored helmets and vests freeing trapped victims, fashioning splints out of newspapers for the injured and shutting off gas mains. The battalions are no fantasy, but Vargas' fellow graduates of a city-sponsored program that has trained 10,000 volunteers to respond to the next big disaster.

It's a Monday night, and Mark Emfinger, who normally would be home watching a football game, is working--but not at his regular job as a sales representative for an insulation company. Tonight he has volunteered, as he puts it, "to visit felons in bad neighborhoods after hours." For eight hours a week for the past six months, Emfinger, 42, has made surprise visits to halfway houses, businesses and private homes throughout northern Orange County.

WEST, Texas - Residents here know the code of sirens, the language of a small-town Texas fire department. As the big fire trucks lumber along, one blast means they're heading to a small blaze; two means a fire drill or meeting. Then things get serious: Three blasts signify major structural damage; four that a person is trapped inside a vehicle, and nine blasts warn of a tornado. This week, the volunteers in the 29-member department suited up and raced to the scene of danger once again.

As Urs Fischer stood inside the Geffen Contemporary last month preparing for his big MOCA survey, the museum's much-discussed financial troubles did not seem to be weighing on him. "I don't care about any of that; I care about art," said the beefy 39-year-old artist in jeans and a long-sleeve black T-shirt, with assorted tattoos snaking up his arms. And he noted that his show has not been shortchanged because of any budget crunch. "Putting on a sculpture show always takes a lot of effort, but we didn't have to compromise much.

If the penal code had a section on landscaping crimes, the Los Angeles Police Department would need a full-time squad to go after everyone responsible for the ongoing fiasco on its own property. It's been 3 1/2 years since the new headquarters opened at 1st and Spring streets, and the city is still trying to get the landscaping right, with planter boxes empty, dead palm trees still standing, a scrubby dirt garden near the memorial to fallen police officers and piles of soil and sand blighting the landscape.

A volunteer hiker who heard the cries for help from missing hiker Nicolas Cendoya credited "an amazing amount of luck" for the rescue. Ted Sindzinski said he spent Wednesday hiking in the area and decided to join the volunteers searching for Cendoya and Kyndall Jack, 18. He joined up with a friend of the pair about 5 p.m. and decided to do a “simple, 10-minute hike, just to look around places that perhaps somebody didn't have time to go...

Volunteers who are helping authorities search for two missing hikers in Orange County are being urged to take extra precautions of their own. In a statement released by the Orange County Sheriff's Department, authorities said individuals who want to contribute to the effort should "be prepared, be safe and have a plan. " "When hiking in wilderness areas, be prepared for the unexpected," the statement said. Kyndall Jack, 18, and Nicholas Cendoya, 19, both of Costa Mesa, got lost on Easter Sunday, telling authorities late that evening that they were about a mile from their car in Holy Jim Canyon.

At a dusty air strip about a mile off the road, an army of volunteers has set up a command post, sending out waves of people into the scrubby terrain to keep looking for the two hikers believed to be lost somewhere in the canyons of south Orange County. Family and friends, neighbors and classmates -- even people who didn't know the two teenagers from Costa Mesa -- gathered Wednesday to continue the search. The word has spread through social media networks and by mouth, and the gravel passage leading to the command post is lined with cars.

As Urs Fischer stood inside the Geffen Contemporary last month preparing for his big MOCA survey, the museum's much-discussed financial troubles did not seem to be weighing on him. "I don't care about any of that; I care about art," said the beefy 39-year-old artist in jeans and a long-sleeve black T-shirt, with assorted tattoos snaking up his arms. And he noted that his show has not been shortchanged because of any budget crunch. "Putting on a sculpture show always takes a lot of effort, but we didn't have to compromise much.

Established in 1961 to protect cabins and to assist hikers and campers, the Holy Jim Volunteer Fire Department has raised money for its operations through an annual auction. The tradition continues Saturday, with this year's auction block including a motorbike, dinner at the Trabuco Steak House, antique tools and furniture, construction supplies, artifacts and other items donated from local businesses. Organizers said they hope to raise $5,000 to $10,000.

The American Cancer Society is looking for 120,000 volunteers for a long-term study, called Cancer Prevention Study 3 , that could help determine cancer risks for future generations. “Many cancer patients struggle to answer the question, 'What caused my cancer?' In many cases, we don't know the answer,” said Alpa V. Patel, the study's principal investigator. “CPS-3 will help us better understand what factors cause cancer, and once we know that, we can be better equipped to prevent cancer.” Earlier studies, CPS-1 and CPS-2, helped determine the links between smoking and cancer and weight and cancer, said Eric Beikmann, cancer society spokesman.

One of two hikers missing in the Trabuco Canyon area of Orange County since Easter Sunday was found alive Wednesday night, authorities said. Nicolas Cendoya, 19, was being taken to a trauma center, authorities said. Search crews had not found his hiking partner, Kyndall Jack, but were scouring the area. Cendoya was "dehydrated and very confused," said Lt. Jason Park of the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Cendoya was found about half a mile from where the two had parked their vehicle.