2023 OCOY Nominee: Whitney Uyeda
Nominated by OWAC member: Tom Raftican
United Way of Santa Barbara County’s Fun In The Sun Outdoors volunteer Coordinator
According to nominating member Tom Raftican, Uyeda’s volunteer efforts are extensive and exceptional. “Over the past half-century, he has literally provided thousands and thousands of hours in support of California’s outdoors and outdoors community,” Raftican wrote. “His work with both habitat enhancement and kids’ fishing programs goes back to the 1980s and carries on today with “Fun in The Sun.” His work ethic has made California a better place to raise kids over the last half-century.”
In the 1980s, Uyeda began volunteering at Lake Cachuma working on creating and placing lake habitat. This led to more volunteer hours with fishing clubs and countywide organizations while maintaining his focus on habitat and children’s fishing programs.
In the most recent 14 years, he has led the United Way of Santa Barbara County’s outdoors element of their “Fun in The Sun” program for disadvantaged kids. The volunteer manager, without a big office or a fancy title, gets 350 kids out fishing at Lake Cachuma and the Goleta pier each summer. Throughout his years of volunteering, Uyeda has consistently been voted into leadership.
To ensure the success of the program, he spends weeks setting up logistics, recruiting, and organizing local fishermen to help out. In addition to administrative duties, (logistics, rods, reels, bait, etc.) he leads student instruction, mentoring, and even clean-up.
Additionally, he is vice president of CCA’s Santa Barbara Chapter; he is (acting) president of the Santa Barbara Sport Fishing Club and is a past president of both the SB Bass Club and the Carpinteria Sport Fishing Club. He also is an NMT volunteer for The Sportfishing Conservancy.
