Nonprofit, Do Good Roseville, prepares for community impact celebration.
By Kinsey Gade
Do Good Roseville will celebrate 10 years of serving the community on October 11 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Roseville Area High School.
Do Good Roseville, a nonprofit organization focusing on community service, is preparing for its 10th anniversary celebration this October.
Along with celebrating relationships and networking, the event will host a volunteer fair, a family service fair and red bin collections for food, shoes and winter outdoor clothing, according to Do Good Roseville co-founders Kathy Ramundt and Sherry Sanders.
The organization started as a way for Ramundt and Sanders to contribute to the community without rules or hindrances after years of doing service work in various community engagement organizations, according to Ramundt.
Ramundt’s passion for community service and engagement started in 2012 after receiving her master’s degree in gerontology, the study of aging. Ramundt said her education taught the necessity of community and social connection as a key to healthy aging.
The pair’s first project was a red bin collection of coats, mittens and hats for kids at the end of Ramundt’s driveway in October 2015. Since then, Do Good Roseville has fulfilled at least one project every month for the past 10 years, excluding April and May of 2020.
“I didn’t know anyone in Roseville,” Ramundt said.
In 2016, Sanders contacted Etienne Djevi after seeing him combat racist statements made on a social media thread concerning the murder of Philando Castile. Do Good Roseville and Djevi, now a board member, quickly organized a community conversation focused on building relationships between races. This sparked the Ask Series, a sequence of community conversations regarding different minority groups.
These conversations served as a way for people to ask questions about the experiences and lives of those in minority communities, gain a better understanding and sympathize, according to Djevi. He said the series created community change from influential attendees, including the Roseville Police Chief.
“A lot of changes that occurred in Roseville came from people with different points of view or backgrounds coming together, looking at a problem from different angles and then coming up with a solution that hopefully works for everyone,” Djevi said.
The Ask Series ended in 2018, only lasting two years, but it’s something Djevi hopes to bring back in Do Good Roseville’s future.
Jeena Gurung, a board member and owner of Namaste Brows and Boutique, was contacted by Ramundt in 2022, who was fulfilling a challenge to meet and have coffee with 52 people in a month. Gurung, passionate about volunteering, felt Do Good Roseville was the perfect outlet for contributing to impactful community projects.
Gurung’s work has mainly focused on supporting and providing for seniors, teen moms, faith communities and the homeless. One of the most memorable projects she worked on was giving out 200 roses on Valentine’s Day to seniors in the community.
Gurung said Do Good Roseville is all about action and providing for the community.
“It’s a space where people come together not just to talk about making a difference, but to actually do it,” Gurung said. “If you want to do good, you don’t need a lot of people; you need the right people. Do Good Roseville is about seeing people, valuing them and reminding each other that we’re never alone.”
Ramundt said during the October celebration, Do Good Roseville will be announcing a big idea they plan to accomplish within the next 10 years.
“Really, we will be continuing more of the same,” Ramundt said. “Our mission has always been making connections, networking, doing things and having a positive impact on our community. That stuff makes me happy.”
SOURCES:
Kathy Ramundt: kramundt@hotmail.com
Sherry Sanders: sanders363s@gmail.com
Etienne Djevi: etiennedjevi@gmail.com
Jeena Gurung: je.ena.gurung@hotmail.com
