Two weeks ago, I gratefully announced the final tally of “Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” to be a record by more than 100, but it turns out a few smile-givers slipped through the cracks uncounted and I would like to acknowledge them now…
Kids giving to kids always puts birdsong in my heart, so one of my favorite 2023 MVPs (Most Valuable Philanthropists) is Rayo Arriaga Gladish. Great-grandson of Arlys Tuttle, who passed away late last year at age 101, 12-year-old Rayo took the lead for the entire Tuttle family and donated 13 balls – plus two scholarships for the Ventura Youth Basketball Association, which has special meaning since his great-grandfather and husband of Arlys, legendary Ventura High School basketball coach Bob Tuttle, created the VYBA long ago.
“We will be missing my great-grandma this Christmas,” Rayo shared, “and hope to be part of bringing happiness and sports to kids in her memory and spirit.”
In addition to Rayo, thanks goes to Andrea Arriaga, Raymundo and Trudy Arriaga, Toni and Jaime Santana, Gayle and Leo Camalich, Gary Tuttle and Ruth Vomund, Erica and Mark Herring, Carly and Jared Wilson, Mary Antoci, Geoffrey Quemuel, Monica Ruiz and Mark Etchings, Summer Helms, Matt and Aimee Pesendian, and Mary Osborne and Lance Gilbert.
Meanwhile, Matt and Michelle Demaria gave a dozen combined basketballs, soccer balls and footballs; and Linda Peddie, with a shopping assist from her husband Jim while she was battling COVID-19, added four more.
All of which adds up to a revised final count of 1,171 children’s smiles handed out these past holidays.
Meanwhile, I keep thinking about 12 smiles handed out by Steve Askay, a former teacher of both my kids in high school. More especially, I cannot forget the tears in my heart over his donation being in memory of his “beautiful granddaughter Mabel Rae Askay.”
Beautiful is a grand understatement, as evidence by the photographs Steve shared with me. If Hollywood had a casting call for a 6-year-old cherub, Irish as Guinness with long curls the color of a shiny penny, a smile as bright as a full moon, and blue eyes that fairly twinkle, the part would have gone to Mabel with no others needing to audition.
Tragically, the Ventura girl died two summer ago, just weeks after finishing kindergarten, when, in an unbelievably freak accident, she fell off a float during a Fourth of July parade in Mandan, North Dakota, where her family was visiting relatives.
From the cloudburst of tears, remarkably, a Rae of sunshine emerged. For the past two years, her Dec. 10 birth date has been “Mabel Rae’s Day of Kindness” where people have been encouraged to do acts of “extravagant love, kindness and generosity.” There is even a “mabel-ray-shines-on” Instagram account.
Here is the kind of shining girl she was, as shared in her obituary: “Mabel Rae Askay lived her life like a red-haired tornado that fiercely loved everyone she ever came across. She never met anyone, or any of God’s creatures, that she couldn’t be friends with.”
Lynn Bova, Mabel’s kindergarten teacher, echoed this in The Star at the time: “You must imagine the warmth of the sun when she skips into the room. The joy in her sparkly blue eyes, her kindness as she rescues a lost spider or bug that found its way into our classroom, the silliness of her green tongue after enjoying a popsicle, and the love she shared with everyone she met.”
December 10 is a long way off – how much better if we treat every day like Mabel Rae’s Day of Kindness.
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
