Retired healthcare professional Dorothy Cardenas is enjoying an updated, remodeled look to her west Gilroy home after two Santa Clara Valley nonprofits teamed up to donate their time and materials for a project on Sept. 10.
Rebuilding Together Silicon Valley and the Sharks Foundation partnered to start and complete the remodeling of Cardenas’ home Tuesday morning. More than a dozen staff members of the Sharks Foundation gathered at the home as volunteers to paint the exterior, while RTSV coordinated the work and obtained materials—all of which was donated to Cardenas.
Additional work included exterior landscaping as well as the installation of new steps leading to the West Tenth Street home’s front door, a new carport door, new handrails, replacement of three leaky windows and some accessibility improvements inside the residence.
RTSV board member Xavier Reyes said a key goal of the remodeling was to make the home safer and healthier for Cardenas.
The Sharks Foundation—the charitable arm of the San Jose Sharks hockey team—made the project financially possible by donating a $30,000 grant to RTSV.
Cardenas—who spent her career as a Certified Nursing Assistant and patient registration representative at hospitals in the South Bay—was born in Oakland and has lived in her Gilroy home for 16 years. She said she wanted to move to Gilroy while working at Saint Louise Regional Hospital.
Now, Cardenas is an active member of her neighborhood, where she has organized a daily walking group with nearly a dozen of her neighbors. During a brief moment while the crew was painting outside her home Sept. 10, Cardenas’s “best friend” and neighbor, Andrea Bradley, walked by and stopped to express her admiration for the project and share a hug with Cardenas.
Cardenas—who has five adult children and five grandchildren—said on Sept. 10 that she had applied earlier this year for a paint job for her home through Rebuilding Together Silicon Valley. Before the work was completed, Cardenas said she expects the improvements provided by the Sharks Foundation to add a value that transcends money to her home.
“New paint just makes your home look so beautiful. It’s like a facelift, and you come home every day and feel tranquility and peace,” Cardenas said in praise and thanks for RTSV’s efforts. “It makes us feel proud that our home looks so beautiful, and it’s ours, and we want to take good care of it.”
Sharks Foundation Executive Director Kevin Brown—who joined his staff as a painter on Sept. 10—said the remodeling at Cardenas’ home marks the foundation’s first project of the current “season,” which is the nonprofit organization’s 30th anniversary year. Brown said the Sharks Foundation’s goal is to contribute at least $1 million to local community efforts this year.
