Vilma Pinheiro, a diligent community servant for more than 20
years, has tried to stay out of the limelight.
Vilma Pinheiro, a diligent community servant for more than 20 years, has tried to stay out of the limelight.
“I like being in the background. Give me something to do and I’ll get it done,” she said.
And Pinheiro has gotten plenty done – from honoring public safety servants as an Exchange Club Member and hosting international guests in her home to working full weekends at the Gilroy Garlic Festival and raising thousands of dollars for the Gilroy Rotary Club. She’s done this all while balancing her travel agency business and caring for her family.
Susan Valenta, president and CEO of the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce, said it is Pinheiro’s unselfish giving and tireless work behind the scenes to better Gilroy that has earned her the title of 2008 Woman of the Year.
“No matter what the organization or project, Vilma contributes her enthusiasm and support graciously and with genuine care for others,” Valenta said. “She cares about Gilroy, and contributes in a positive way to her community.”
In the past few weeks, Pinheiro, wife of Gilroy Mayor Al Pinheiro, has been nudged out of the volunteer trenches and into the spotlight.
At last month’s Chamber of Commerce Wednesday breakfast, she learned that she had been awarded the Chamber’s highest honor.
“It was announced there so I was totally shocked,” Pinheiro said. “After the shock I was nervous. I was really nervous. My stomach was even churning. I thought this couldn’t be happening. I don’t like attention. I really don’t.”
At the tender age of 11, Pinheiro moved to Gilroy from the East Coast. She attended Eliot Elementary School while living with her grandmother. Her family would move to Gilroy a year later. After graduating from Gilroy High School, she attended Gavilan College before moving to San Jose to work for an insurance agency. She moved back to Gilroy in 1985 and married her husband a year later. Five years later, their son was born. He was ill, requiring Al Pinheiro to drive him to Stanford Hospital for medical attention. At the time, Vilma Pinheiro was commuting to Salinas where she worked as an insurance broker.
“Al said, ‘Why don’t you just quit your job and open a travel agency in Gilroy,'” Vilma Pinheiro recalled. “It was hard for me because I loved my job, but I loved my son, too. I had to be close to (his medical care).”
She opened Caravelle Travel on First Street, which from the beginning has focused on a niche market, including cruises and small-group travel to Mexico, Portugal and Hawaii. While the business flourished, Pinheiro was reluctant to join a community group.
“I was really shy. I’m still shy, but I was much more shy then,” Vilma Pinheiro laughed. “It was Susan Valenta who came into the office.”
With her husband’s and Valenta’s encouragement, Vilma Pinheiro in 1991 joined the Exchange Club, a service group that focuses on Americanism and helping youth. She served as the group’s president in 1995 and for the past three years has chaired the annual Blue and Gold Luncheon honoring public safety servants.
Vilma Pinheiro has helped out with the Gilroy Sister Cities Association – often choosing to pick up Sister Cities dignitaries from San Francisco Airport at 3 a.m. She also has served on the boards of the Rotary Club and the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce, and is a Leadership Gilroy graduate. And she has kept events, like crab cioppino dinners and Holy Ghost celebrations at the IFDES Hall running smoothly for the past 20 years.
Giving back to a community Vilma Pinheiro loves has motivated her to give even more.
“It’s what you get back, for me. It’s just natural to do it. If someone asks me to get involved with something it just feels natural to do that,” she said.
She points to a challenge the Gilroy Rotary Club handed her several years ago – create a new fundraiser for the service group. Her answer? A highly successful casino night that raked in more than $18,000 for scholarships.
“It’s just gratifying. It was so much fun doing it. We had a ball,” Vilma Pinheiro said.
She has balanced her volunteer work with her dedication to her family – one son, two stepchildren, and two grandchildren, all of whom live in Gilroy.
Al Pinheiro, her husband of 22 years, credits her for keeping him “sane.”
“She’s always ready to give of herself in the community and at the same time as a complement to me as mayor,” he said. “What can I say? She’s been my partner for many, many years … I’m really, really proud of her.”
Vilma Pinheiro said she finds that if she does a little bit of work for each organization, it goes a long way.
“I’m honored and humbled,” Vilma Pinheiro said of the Woman of the Year honor. “To me, there are so many people in Gilroy who deserve this. I think we live in a great community. I’ve lived in San Jose. I’ve lived in Morgan Hill. And to me, Gilroy is a really close-knit community. People are just there for each other.”
In all her travels, Vilma Pinheiro said she has always looked forward to coming home. She said friends sometimes ask her if she and her family will retire in the Azores.
“I look at them and say ‘No, I could never leave Gilroy,'” she said.
