For a Good Cause -- Bill Forester

-- Story by Young Chang, photo by TKTTK

The kids call him Dr. Bill and the teachers call him “grandpa.”

He visits Orange Coast College’s Harry and Grace Steele Children’s

Center twice a week just to help out, and not through a formal volunteer

program. It’s just because he wants to have an effect on the children’s

future.

Bill Forester, who retired from a teaching career last year, said it

was the life-changing events of Sept. 11 that directly triggered him to

try to help the world in his one-person way.

“I thought to myself, I can’t do anything to save the world

individually, but maybe I could help to influence some children,” the

63-year-old grandfather of four said.

With two of his grandchildren enrolled at OCC’s center, which services

the children of its students, Forester started volunteering late last

September, doing everything from mop the floor to read to the children.

“The first thing I do is I ask the teachers if they have any

disgusting jobs that they’ve been putting off and need done,” he said. “I

like to see if I can help them out in that area. Quite often they say

‘no.”’

He wipes the tables after the children have eaten, cleans the floors,

sweeps and rakes the outside areas, cleans out the tempera paint pots and

puts things back on the top shelf -- on “the displays that are too high

for the ladies to reach.”

The most “disgusting” thing he can remember doing is cleaning out the

cubbies, which tend to collect all kinds of unwanted things. But Forester

was quick to add that no job at the center is ever really disgusting.

He also reads aloud to the children before they nap and earlier this

month, with Dr. Seuss’ birthday being March 2, he even dressed up as Cat

in the Hat.

Since young children tend to get scared of make-believe characters,

Forester started by wearing the big colorful hat for a few days. Then he

applied his makeup in front of everyone and put on his cat nose.

“They saw it was really me that transformed,” Forester said.

Sometimes he’ll help the kids ease into the center -- the ones who are

still attached to their parents and cry when they get dropped off.

“I kinda take them and distract them a little bit, then they start

leading me around with the finger and a few minutes later, they’re out

playing with the rest of them,” he said.