Summerlin-area residents pitch in to make community better

Want to make a difference in someone’s life? Individuals who are doing just that include Sun City Summerlin resident Steve Commander and his wife, Diana. They decided to help Crestwood Edison Elementary School, 1300 Pauline Way.

Since 2007, the retired couple have provided the students’ families with a holiday dinner each December. The effort keeps growing and included 30 turkey dinners in 2010, 50 in 2011 and 80 in 2012.

Last year, after View ran a story on the couple, donations jumped to about $3,500, which resulted in 150 holiday dinners.

“It was cases and cases of food,” Steve Commander said. “Our dining room was packed.”

They had to rent a U-Haul to deliver everything. Crestwood Edison needed only 100 dinners, so Bet Knesset Badmidbar Temple, 10360 Sun City Blvd., took 30 turkeys for its program for Adcock Elementary School, 6350 Hyde Ave., and Cornerstone Christian Church, 2481 N. Decatur Blvd., passed out the remaining 20 turkeys.

This year, donations are needed by early December. Checks should be made out to Smith’s Food & Drug.

For more information, email Commander at sdcommand@centurylink.net or call 702-304-1768.

Rico Ramirez’s single mom was a first-grade teacher who also picked up extra jobs to see that her children had a good life. Susie Romero took her children to volunteer with her in soup kitchens and homeless shelters around their hometown of Pueblo, Colo.

Now that he’s 36, Ramirez has begun volunteering with Communities In Schools, which helps disadvantaged students. His employer, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, brought in $50,000 worth of donations for last year’s Fill The Bus campaign, which provides back-to-school supplies to at-risk students at Cunningham Elementary School, 4145 Jimmy Durante Blvd.

“I had no idea the impact it had until I started going to the classrooms to see the items we’d donated being used in the classrooms,” said Ramirez, a Summerlin-area resident.

He has also spoken to seniors at Chaparral High School, 3850 Annie Oakley Drive, about scholarships and school loans for college. Ramirez passed along some wisdom handed down from his mother: You can lose your job, you can lose your car and you can lose your house, but you can never lose your education.

For more information about Communities In Schools, visit cisnevada.org.

Kelly Phillips works full time for the Valley Health System and is earning her degree with a full course load. She is also a single mother of two children. Earlier this year, Phillips, 36 — who will soon tackle her master’s degree — decided she wasn’t doing enough and began volunteering for The Rape Crisis Center, 801 S. Rancho Drive, Suite B-2.

Phillips works on outreach programs that usually last two to four hours. She also gives five hours of her time each Sunday, which is her only “free day.” Why give it up?

“Because people need it,” she said, “and because I have it to give.”

She said she had not experienced a sexual assault but that seeing items on the news prompted her to select The Rape Crisis Center.

“I think the more voices we have to express (outrage at) the type of violence and abuse we have going on, maybe one day it will stop and there will be consequences for the guy’s actions,” Phillips said.

She said her eventual goal is to head a children’s pediatric cancer center.

For more information about The Rape Crisis Center, visit rcclv.org.

Contact Summerlin Area View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 702-387-2949.