DATE: Tuesday, April 29, 1997               TAG: 9704290257

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A16  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   86 lines

ANTI-CRIME UNIT'S YOUTH OF YEAR PERSONIFIES VIRTUE OF VOLUNTEERING

You wouldn't have found William Gainer at the national summit on volunteerism in Philadelphia in recent days.

The Norfolk youth was too busy with his school work, part-time job - and volunteering in his Roberts Village neighborhood.

While he didn't go to Philadelphia, a busy Gainer squeezed in time Monday to collect a local honor for his efforts. He was named Youth of the Year by the Norfolk Neighborhood Crime Prevention Coalition at the group's annual banquet.

About 150 attended the event at the Norfolk Airport Hilton Hotel.

``I think you can get motivated without going up there,'' Gainer said of the Philadelphia gathering. ``If you like what you're doing enough, that will motivate you right there.''

Gainer, 18, has liked volunteer work so much that he's logged more than 700 hours since 1993.

He's been involved in a variety of leadership activities, including co-directing and acting in the Impact Performing Arts Troupe, assisting with a youth newsletter, participating in community clean-up campaigns, training other teens, helping the elderly and planning youth speak-outs.

Gainer also was one of five teen-aged founders of Pizza-Ria!, a service that delivers pizza to some public housing neighborhoods where regular businesses won't go. Recent profits produced a $200 scholarship to help a student go to Norfolk State University.

Gainer said he got involved in volunteer work after accompanying a friend to a part-time cleaning job at the Roberts Village community center. He pitched in and liked the feeling of helping out.

Recently, Gainer has cut back on volunteering because he's landed a part-time job at a McDonald's restaurant. He's getting ready for college - Pace University in New York, where he'll major in theater.

The coalition also issued awards for Volunteer of the Year, Business Person of the Year and Police Officer of the Year.

``Why do I volunteer? It's because I have to,'' said Beverly ``Bev'' Sell, who received the coalition's business award, the group's first. ``If I want a better community, I have to be willing to volunteer. It's a very cheap price to pay.

``A little bit of my time for a better neighborhood is well worth it. It's a good investment. More people should do it.''

Sell, who co-owns the Sell & Reese marketing and advertising company, is known for giving more than a little time. Her efforts include helping to form two innovative programs: Norfolk's Neighborhood Network, which holds public forums for swapping ideas on problems and solutions, and the Norview area's Five Points Partnership, which connects the community-improvement efforts of neighborhood schools, churches, businesses, civic leagues and police.

``I get a lot from it. I like accomplishment,'' Sell said. ``It's a creative rush to be able to do that.''

The Volunteer of the Year award went to Harold ``Butch'' Schupska of Fairmount Park, who heads the Adopt-a-Cop citizen patrol. The efforts helped lead to city demolition of three crack houses.

Schupska could not attend the awards banquet because of his work schedule, said Police Chief Melvin C. High.

Eight police officers shared in the coalition's award to police. Each has created innovative programs in public housing neighborhoods.

They are Alphonso A. Calbourne, Bowling Green; James M. Ipock, Calvert Square; Richard James, Diggs Town; Lorenzo A. Pittman, Grandy Village; Randal P. Bullard, Oakleaf Forest; Evelyn E. Douglas, Roberts Village; Carla D. Borrero, Tidewater Gardens, and Andre C. Smith, Young Terrace.

Keynote speaker John J. Wilson, deputy administrator of the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, said Norfolk's community-policing partnerships are models for the nation ``at a time when there are fewer resources and unprecedented increases in the need for services. . . .

``We know what to do,'' he said. ``The key question is: Do we in communities across the country have the will to act?''

While coalition members honored the local volunteers, many pondered the potential impact of the national summit in Philadelphia.

``It's a day late and dollar short,'' said coalition President Carl Meredith, who criticized Democrats and Republicans alike. ``I don't need the government to tell me that I should get involved.''

And Bev Sell said: ``They can have all the summits they want, but until people realize that it's up to them, it really won't matter.''

How can more people be motivated to help their communities?

``If I had that answer,'' Sell said, ``I'd be getting more than this award.'' ILLUSTRATION: L. TODD SPENCER

Youth of the Year William Gainer, left, greets Martha M. Raiss, a

community outreach official, Monday night. Banquet speaker John J.

Wilson of the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice is at right.

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