My friend Doug Block

Doug Block, my volunteer and friend at Habitat Silicon Valley died on Monday from heart complications so this journal is about him.

I met Doug probably about a year and a half ago at Habitat Silicon Valley. He had retired and he (and/or maybe with the encouragement of his wife, (I saw a lot of those at Habitat)) started volunteering with Habitat Silicon Valley. He primarily worked with Kate Bryan, my colleague. Doug was an immediate hit. He was nice, funny, talkative, and very hard working. I know at the time, he made Kate’s life and workload so much easier.

There were a couple times when Doug had finished his workload with Kate and I asked if I could use him for a project, a boring multi-step archiving project. (I was drowning in old applications for past developments.) The volunteer that had been doing this job was, well, not very detail-oriented or enchanted by the project and it was not being done properly and required a lot of my time to correct. Doug took it on and caught on quickly. Before I knew it, he asked me if he could write out a process and help and/or quality control the other volunteer. It was music to my ears…moments like that when you know any donor would be proud of the investment they made in a (our) nonprofit: wonderful volunteers like Doug, managing other volunteers. He completed the archiving project.

Shortly thereafter, I can’t remember the details of the event but Doug and his wife Carol were going on vacation to Hawaii and he was taken to the hospital. He couldn’t continue volunteering for a while because his doctor’s advised him not to drive.

On August 1st at a Habitat volunteer appreciation picnic Doug and Carol were there, it was the first time I saw Doug since January or February 2010. He was looking good and it was so good to see him!! Kate had left Habitat for graduate school and I asked Doug when he was going to come and volunteer with me. I had found 8 more boxes of applications that needed to be scanned and archived. I told him he was the only one that I could trust! He laughed. I knew that mentioning this to him could be the turn off but wouldn’t you know he called me on Monday and he was in on Friday.

When I left Habitat earlier this month Doug was plugging away, three boxes down, five more to go. People like Doug are hero’s to me. He was a light in our office on those Monday and Fridays; he did not complain about the job in front of him, he took it on and improved the process while working it. The last Monday he was in the office he gave me a hug and promise he’d try to be at my goodbye party.

I will miss my friend, his convertible green car, his driving cap, his Ferrari hat – he’d tell you the closest thing he’d get to a Ferrari, his stories, his smile, his pierced ear, his mustache and his hugs. He was such a treat to work with.

From 100920

Doug on August 1 with Jennifer Simmons, Habitat ED.

For information about his memorial, please contact the Habitat Silicon Valley office, 408-942-6444.