Giving 17,000 hours

Newport Beach resident Sandy Meadows remembers reading somewhere that everyone can make a difference.

For some that means recycling, for others it may mean donating clothes or helping at a soup kitchen.

Not for Meadows. No, for Meadows, who said she relishes a challenge, it means volunteering in the local community. A lot.

After raising her two daughters, Alexis, 17, Chandler, 14, and son, Grant, 15, to school age with her husband, Rob, Meadows found a new outlet for her seemingly endless energy: volunteering more than 5,000 hours with the Newport Beach Police Department and more than 12,000 hours with the Waldorf School of Orange County in Costa Mesa.

“It feels good. It gets you out of yourself,” Meadows said Wednesday from the police department. “If it wasn’t for my husband and the family, I couldn’t do what I do.”

If being a registered nurse and working in operating and emergency rooms in the past wasn’t enough of a challenge, now she’s tackling motherhood and extensive philanthropy.

Rob Meadows, her husband of nearly 19 years, said the family, which he describes as a nucleus, has been fortunate enough to live comfortably thanks to his successful electrical contracting business.

With the business keeping them financially stable, Sandy has been able to spend all her time devoted to the children and the community.

Sandy is the chapter leader of the Joyful Foundation, which sews fleece blankets for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. At the Waldorf School, she’s the SCRIP coordinator, a program where students and their families can buy gift certificates for food and school supplies with part of the proceeds going back into the school.

At the police department, where she has volunteered since 2000, she’s mostly behind the scenes working with the chief’s assistant, records staff or on small tasks with detectives.

“We are fortunate to have an excellent group of dedicated volunteers, and Sandy is an outstanding complement to that unit. She is one of the most selfless and dedicated people I know,” said Newport Beach police Lt. Craig Fox.

Sandy and Rob Meadows said she likes to stay behind the scenes and doesn’t volunteer for the accolades.

“I just want to help,” she said.

“She’s not one to sit around and diddle around the house,” Rob Meadows said. “It’s inspiring. It keeps her happy. How can I complain when she’s doing such good things?”

The pair also hope it serves as an example for her children.

Rob Meadows said he hopes that all the volunteering they and their children do will ultimately keep the kids grounded, considering they live in such an affluent community.

“Kids will look at what you do, not what you say,” he said.