Are you a cat lover? One could definitely say that about Sandy Monaghan, founder and president of Los Gatos Foster Animals Cat Rescue, as well as all the wonderful volunteers there. Founded in 2012, Los Gatos is a nonprofit, volunteer-staffed, no-kill animal rescue in Genesee County. “We officially became a nonprofit in November 2013, but I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” Monaghan shares. “I’ve always had a soft heart for animals in trouble,” she admits. “Some people are interested in helping the less fortunate; I’ve always cared about that.”
There’s nothing Mike Buckel likes doing more than helping others. He has been volunteering his time and energy since the early 90s, and his priorities are working with kids and anything to do with the police department. Buckel is a member of various boards, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Flint, the Flint Police Foundation and Sonitrol Crime Stoppers, of which he is the president.
Shari Burdt will celebrate her 75th birthday in October, and according to her good friend, Jeniel Payne, Burdt is “the busiest lady I know!” Payne goes on to say, “I just hope that someday I can be like her, helping all these kids and the community.”
When she was 12 years old, Tracy Palmer’s family moved to Michigan from Illinois. They landed in Beecher, where Palmer spent the rest of her school years attending Dailey Elementary and Beecher High School. She considers herself a Beecher Buccaneer to this day. She played sports, (track and basketball) and wrote a lot of plays, but wasn’t in any of them – more comfortable behind the scenes. “My outgoing personality was always there, but didn’t come out until I was grown,” Palmer shares.
Being someone’s hero isn’t something Pastor Tanya Cox set out to do. It just sort of happened for this blue jeans and boots-wearing country girl, the senior pastor at Eastside Church of the Nazarene in Flint. Four days a week, she commutes 30+ miles one way into the inner city from Tuscola County’s Otter Lake to preach, listen, help, and do her absolute best to permanently changes lives – one person at a time.
