Letters to the Editir Letters to the Editir (April 16, 2004)

Fellow volunteer recalls Kate Wakerly

Editor:

I had the pleasure of meeting Kate Wakerly while volunteering for the rotating shelter and dinners for the homeless and hungry.

She was an inspiration for me and I got very involved. Her timeless energy for this cause was a great thing for our community. I pray for her family and loved ones to have strength during this trying time. She will be missed.

Maureen Giandinoto
Kittoe Drive

Role model gave generously to Zimbabwe orphans

Editor:

I am the meet director for the Run for Zimbabwe Orphans. The run takes place every March in Mountain View at St. Joseph School and funds Makumbi Children's Home in Zimbabwe.

The run is one of the many charities that Kate Wakerly funded. It would seem strange that a person of my age, 57, would need a role model. It might also seem strange that my role model would be a person one year younger than me. Yet, Kate Wakerly has been my role model for many years. I've always admired the way Kate chose to lead her life. Her focus was always on people and how best to help people.

Five years ago when I came to Kate and told her about the desperate conditions in Zimbabwe -- the orphan crisis and the AIDS epidemic -- she immediately became a sponsor of the run and wrote articles in the Voice. This ability to focus on others came, partly, from her conviction of how (as she put it) "very lucky" she had it.

A few weeks before she died, she told me that there was no need for anyone to feel sorry for her, that she had the best medical attention, the best family and the most comfortable life that anyone could ask for. She contrasted her life with the life of a starving orphan in Africa and concluded, "How can we, who have so much, ignore others who have so little?" Good question, Kate.

All of us will miss Kate, but her legacy lives on in the smiles of the children at the Run for Zimbabwe Orphans and in the lives of the children at Makumbi Children's Home in Zimbabwe.

Ellen L. Clark
Marvin Avenue, Los Altos

Speed humps are the way to go

Editor:

Speed humps save lives. We love our speed humps on Sleeper Avenue.

Unfortunately, they haven't discouraged the through traffic from Grant Road to Mountain View High School in the morning and at noon, but they certainly have slowed down the idiots who used to speed through our residential neighborhood.

Calderon Avenue needs them too because it has become a bypass for Highway 237 to El Camino Real during the evening rush hour and because Calderon is a residential street not designed for high-speed through traffic.

I think that Mountain View should consider speed humps on every residential and school street that gets high traffic during commute and school hours.

William R. Hitchens
Sunnyview Lane

BART riders stuck without buses to complete the trip

Editor:

Visualize this: BART gets built at the expense of every other sensible mass transit solution at billions of dollars. The first day it opens, some 20,000 East Bay residents (not Santa Clara County taxpayers) get out of their cars and get on board BART for a trip to San Jose and Santa Clara.

They arrive at the end of the line, only to realize that due to BART's expensive ego trip, there are no buses to take them to work, school, the doctor or shopping.

Why are there no buses? Because VTA had to cut back on routes and service to cover the expense of BART.

So, what do those 10,000 to 20,000 passengers do the very next day? They get in their cars, and drive to work, school, the doctor or shopping ... leaving BART cars empty.

Jeff Coykendall
Pinehurst Avenue, Los Gatos

E-mail a friend a link to this story.