The city recently honored three citizens on Saturday, April 26, who have spent a lifetime improving the lives of Avalon’s youth: Cap Perkins, Jeanne Sook Hill, and Richard Hernandez have positively affected and changed the lives of Island young people. Mayor Anni Marshall described them as inspirations who show how Islanders “change the lives of our youth and our community simply through giving.”
The honorees were:
Cap Perkins: Philanthropist
Cap was shipwrecked here in 1947. After serving as a diver for the Navy starting at 16, he came back to California. He fell in love with a boat in the Marina that he walked by regularly. One day the boat was gone. It had sunk. He got the salvage rights, made a dive tank out of a fire extinguisher and brought the boat up. He fixed the boat and went sailing without understanding how to control the winds. Two days later he, ended up off the shores of Avalon without any money and only the clothes on his back. He made it to shore and immediately picked up work at a construction company. That first day here he worked for a dinner. He fell in love with the Island and decided to stay. Through hard work, he was able to afford his first house.
He continued to invest and did well for himself. Cap Perkins was generous to those who might need a little help themselves, such as the woman who could not afford to go back to Mexico to see her son, who was somehow able to go the next day.
Cap always helped individual kids he knew with financial aid for college. When he was older, he decided to leave his entire fortune to help the community. The Captain’s Foundation was established while he was still alive in 1998 and has continued since his passing in 2012.
The Captain’s Foundation has given more than $1 million to date and is currently giving more than $100,000 a year towards scholarships and community clubs and projects. In this last year the foundation gave 23 scholarships ranging from $2,500 to $3,000 per student, plus sizable donations to CHOICES and the city’s Teen Center.
Jeanne Sook Hill: Girl Scouts, Arts, and Swim
Although she grew up in Los Angeles, Jeanne spent her youthful summers here. When she traveled the world with the Ice Capades, she would tell people she was from Catalina Island because it sounded more interesting and because she loved it here. One of her fondest memories was sailing around the Island with her good friend Cap Perkins. When she retired from dancing and skating, she moved to Catalina with her husband Bill Hill and bought the Sears catalog store.
Classically trained in ballet, folk and modern dance, she opened a school and taught all kids who wanted to learn. She helped start the Catalina Art Festival and created the young artist booth to help foster arts in the community. There was no drama department at the school, so she created one and directed two major plays a year with actors of all ages. Jeanne did it all for free.
She saw a need for Island girls to learn moral values and get an opportunity to enjoy the outdoors, so she became the den mother for the Brownies and the Girl Scouts on the Island. Then she realized the boys could use these lessons as well and became a pack leader for the Cub and Boy scouts when no men would step up.
Jeanne lost her 5-year-old daughter Kristina in a drowning accident. Jeanne started teaching kids as young as babies to learn to swim so every child would feel confident in the water. Jeanne taught swimming until she was in her 80s and no longer physically able to continue.
Richard Hernandez: Coach
Richard was Island born and raised. He is a local boy who is teaching local boys to be respectful, disciplined, and proud Island men. Richard’s vehicle in doing this has been his love, baseball. Lipe, his father, was a founding member of the Avalon Little League, now Avalon Kids Baseball. As soon as Richard could coach in the ’70s he did. Then he took over as commissioner. Richard is now approaching 50 years in coaching. Richard was the women’s softball coach in the late ’80s and early ’90s. He took the girls to the CIF Finals. He took over the men’s baseball team in 1993 and won the championship in 2001. Richard is one of three coaches to win a CIF Championship for Avalon and one of two coaches to take two separate programs to the finals.
Asked for stories about their coach, his former students didn’t talk about baseball, they talked about the lessons and how coach always went to bat for them. He was known as a strict disciplinarian, a fundamentalist, teaching them to do things right, making themselves presentable, and them accountability to their teammates, school and community.
He reached out to college coaches to help his kids play at the next level, from his son John-Eric, who was a two-time DIV 2 College World Series Champion and an MVP, to Danny Jimenez who is currently playing at San Francisco State. But Richard knew many of the kids just needed to eat. And Coach would go to bat for them making sure on road trips that if they needed money to eat, he would give what was needed. A pair of shoes would just show up so players could perform at their best and not be embarrassed by not having cleats.
David Hart is recreation coordinator for the city of Avalon.
