Shopping with local children helps Mary Hubbell become SBC’s
best volunteer
The young woman, a large smile beaming brightly on her face,
walked towards Mary Hubbell on a clear, sunny Saturday morning
about three years ago.
Shopping with local children helps Mary Hubbell become SBC’s best volunteer
The young woman, a large smile beaming brightly on her face, walked towards Mary Hubbell on a clear, sunny Saturday morning about three years ago.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” asked the woman, who had signed up to be a volunteer shopper with Small Steps, the non-profit charity that provides coats and shoes to deserving local children which Hubbell helped found in 1996.
Hubbell remembers feeling a bit sad, “because of course, I didn’t remember her at all,” she said. But Hubbell’s memory lapse didn’t seem to faze the woman, who continued smiling as she told Hubbell, “You took me shopping when I was little. That’s why I’m here.”
Hubbell, 55, was recently voted best community volunteer in the Pinnacle Awards readers’ poll, largely due to her involvement with Small Steps. But as is often the case with so-called do-gooders, Hubbell is reluctant to talk about herself, preferring instead to focus on her charity and the people who help her make it all possible.
“I really want to thank everyone who selected me; it is a huge honor,” she said. “I don’t really feel like I deserve this, because there are so many people in this county who do many wonderful things. But I really appreciate it. It is a huge compliment.”
A San Benito County native, Hubbell graduated from San Benito High School in 1970 and earned her bachelor’s degree in business from San Jose State four years later. After taking a job with what was then Bianchi & Lorincz, a local accounting firm, Hubbell joined the Jaycees, a junior chamber of commerce organization. She was a member of the group for about five years, serving a one-year term as president.
It was while she was president that she was approached by the regional director, who told Hubbell the Hollister chapter was required to participate in the organization’s annual Christmas shopping tour event, which provided local children with necessary items during the holiday season.
“I told them no, because I didn’t think we could afford it,” Hubbell remembered. “But I was told we had to, so we went door-to-door trying to raise enough funds to pull it off.”
The event was a success, and quickly became one of Hubbell’s favorites. When the Hollister Jaycees disbanded a few years later [“I think it just ran its course,” Hubbell said], there was money left over earmarked for the shopping tour.
“We had held a fundraiser just before the group closed, so we had this money and didn’t know what to do with it,” she said. “We put the money in the bank, where it sat for about five years.”
In 1996, Hubbell and some of her co-workers at Bianchi & Lorincz decided to use the money to create an event similar to the shopping tour. After a few meetings, they came up with the idea to take as many children as they could shopping for winter coats.
“We sat around brainstorming and someone said we should just take the whole process [of creating an event] one step at a time,” she said. “From there, it became Small Steps.”
That first year, the group provided about 20 children with winter coats. This year, more than 400 Small Steps volunteers took 383 San Benito County children shopping for coats, shoes and minimal school supplies.
“It is just amazing how well the community supports this event,” Hubbell said. “We became a non-profit organization a few years back so that we could get matching funds, and that helps. The Intero Foundation is now one of our biggest contributors.”
Today, each child receives $100 and is taken through Target and Payless Shoe Source to pick out a coat and a pair of shoes by a screened volunteer. Any money left after those two purchases can be put towards clothing such as tops or socks or items such as a backpack – never toys, candy or make-up, Hubbell said.
While waiting in line, children receive juice and healthy snacks, and after shopping are treated to a McDonald’s Egg McMuffin. The hundreds of volunteers do tasks such as checking children in and out, serving snacks or breakfast, shopping or removing tags from purchased items, a task Hubbell says is her favorite.
“I love seeing what the kids have bought,” she said with a smile. “I remember this one little boy who was so happy because he had a pair of socks in his bag, and they were his first pair of socks. And this boy was 8 years old. Then there was the little girl who couldn’t wait to put on her tennis shoes, because she had always had just one pair of shoes, and they had to be for both school and church, so she hadn’t really played any sports because of her shoes. She told me she was happy because now she could play basketball. Those stories are why I do this.”
Small Steps works closely with the county schools, which are now responsible for choosing the children who would most benefit from the organization’s services. Each school is given a certain number of children, and teachers are asked to help with the selection. A recent change allows for family selection; if one child is chosen for Small Steps and has brothers or sisters of elementary or middle school age, all of the siblings are invited to participate. The event is held in November, Hubbell said, for two reasons – students have been in school long enough for teachers to be aware of who might benefit and it is far enough away from the holiday season so that kids don’t think of the items as Christmas gifts.
Hubbell is grateful to her employers – the company has changed quite a bit, she said, but continues to support the efforts of Small Steps.
“It is one of our missions to give back to the community, and my bosses are very supportive of employees who give back,” she said. “They realize we all benefit from that kind of support. When you do this kind of work, you get much more out of it then you ever put into it.”
While Hubbell is grateful for her award, Small Steps would not happen, she said, without the following people – Sally Silva, Crysel Bianchi, Lois Itow, Jan De Rosa, Lisa Scagliotti, Angie Bocanegra, Barbara Wind, Barbara Shackelton, Joe Garcia, Jeff Dahm, Denise Gandaria, Terese Machado, Miriam Martinez, Cindy Silva, Cheryl Peed, Lillian Perreira and Nicole De Morales – as well as the hundreds of volunteers willing to spend a Saturday morning helping others.
“Sometimes we’ll get people who say they don’t feel comfortable with children, and we tell them there are so many jobs in different areas, and they’ll sign up and then have the best time,” Hubbell said. “I have met so many amazing people doing this.”
“This community has grown a lot,” she continued. “When I was little, you could walk down the street and know every single person you passed on the street. That doesn’t happen anymore. And unfortunately, I don’t feel like the downtown area is as vibrant as it once was. But I think we can get back to that. People don’t realize how lucky we are. We have a great community here. We can’t lose it.”
