Volunteer Spotlight

Ken Li and the Piedmont Community Service Crew have been lending their capable hands to Rebuilding Together Oakland's projects for five years.  The Crew, which Ken founded seven years ago, is a branch of Boy Scouts' co-ed Venture Crew, and he developed it to provide an outlet for mother-son, father-daughter collaboration, as well as expand on the Boy Scouts' community service ethic.  He is particularly interested in working with and mentoring young people, and describes himself as "naturally inclined to recruiting and networking."  The Piedmont team, which is student-led, chose to work with Rebuilding Together Oakland because they can learn hands-on skills and direct their own work, but there is no age limit, meaning all students can participate.  The Crew serves with many groups in Oakland and Piedmont, and Ken seeks out projects that allow them to be part of the full circle of community work, such as building a garden with RTO, and then working in the soup kitchen where the food from the garden is donated.  The crew--which is all high school students-started out as a volunteer team, but has moved to sponsoring and providing their own house captains for October Block Building and April Rebuilding Day.

On Ken's second project, the team worked at a house that needed the kitchen floor replaced.  One of his favorite RTO memories is watching two freshmen and sophomore girls "bending nails;" they weren't really hammering them in, just bending them all over the place, but they were having a great time. Over the years, Ken has learned a lot about how to successfully lead projects.  His advice to new house captains: plan ahead and delegate work.  If you can, meet with some members of your volunteer team ahead of time to set up work groups based on the scope.

Ken lives in Piedmont with his wife.  Their daughter and son, who are now 20 and 22, were members of the Crew as kids.  When he's not with RTO, Ken works ceaselessly with Venture Crew, is a mechanical engineer doing product development and design, and plays soccer.  We greatly appreciate all the hard work of Ken Li and the Piedmont Community Service Crew!

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