We’ve all heard the phrase “It takes a village,” but have you ever asked yourself just where a village starts? By now I hope that you have started to see that what makes our Seal Beach village so special is our remarkable neighbors, quietly going about their daily lives, contributing in ways that lay a foundation for the things we love so much about our town.
This week’s Neighbor to Know is yet another such person adding her years of dedication to our foundation. Meet College Park East neighbor Schelly Sustarsic.
Schelly is one of those rare, native born Californians. She was raised in Eagle Rock along with one younger sister, starting college at Pasadena Community College before transferring to CSULB where she followed her passion in science to a B.S. degree in Zoology and a Master’s degree in Biology.
She met Dennis in a science lab and together they journeyed to Kansas where he was starting a PhD program. They were married there in 1975. This year will mark their 41st anniversary. She earned a second Master’s degree before her first daughter joined the family. The family moved to Ohio for a short time and then back to California for Dennis’s work in research. Two additional children, a boy and girl followed and by the time they moved to College Park East (CPE) in 1989, their family was complete.
Schelly, like many moms, found joy early on through her children’s activities and schools. Her youngest was at Seal Beach Playgroup and her son at McGaugh, both places where she did work as a teaching volunteer as well as helping to organize and raise funds for Project Seek.
She was active in the PTA, serving as President of the Los Alamitos High School PTA where she helped design and create the Academic Awards of Excellence, a program that is still in existence today. She also served on the Orange County PTA District Council for several years.
Schelly was instrumental in helping to raise funds for the McAuliffe Media Center as media arts began to take hold in school. Through these efforts she met many neighbors and created lifelong relationships. Her dedication to helping in the science labs grabbed attention and at one time she considered taking the exam to get her teaching credentials to become a full time teacher. Unfortunately, and perhaps one of her biggest regrets that family events and illness intervened and she moved in another direction.
She was an active Girl Scout troop leader, and it was here she met Patty Campbell, also a CPE active mom.
She was always interested in Seal Beach government, and when Patty was elected to City Council, she appointed Schelly to the Parks and Recreation Commission where she served her first eight year term.
It was during this first tenure that she helped with the Save McGaugh Pool fund (raising money to keep it from closing) among other projects, like the upgrade of Blue Bell Park and others.
She has been an active member of the Seal Beach Founder’s Day committee for over 20 years, helping organize and put on events every five years.
One of her favorite memories is of the parades that went around the Old Town Greenbelt area. She is most proud of the collective work of last year’s Centennial committee and the years’ worth of events for the community. These memories are her favorites.
She has served on the board for the College Park East Neighborhood Association (CPENA) on and off for many years, helping to bring together the neighborhood that sometimes feels like it is on its own island, away from Old Town.
She has helped keep annual family oriented events thriving over the years, always centering on Heather Park and hot dog carts. CPENA serves the over 1,700 homes, keeping their district informed, close and, well, neighborly.
Her dedication to the community and CPE specifically earned her yet another eight years on the Parks and Recreation commission, re-appointed by current councilman Gary Miller. But her service has not all been fun and recreation.
She was also appointed to the OCTA Citizens Advisory Committee where they discuss such things as freeway projects, buses, trains, bicycles, pedestrians, and other modes of transportation and their impacts on the local community.
Her voice has become an important one for us all as the current plans to expand the 22 -405 interchange evolves.
One daughter now lives in Tennessee, her son and second daughter are living locally. Dennis is now retired and they will have more time to travel, but she tells me that she still loves coming home to Seal Beach.
After 27 years as a resident and contributor to the community, she still loves the small town, small corner feeling of Seal Beach, knowing that whenever she walks outside her door, she will meet someone she has grown to know over her many years of interacting in so many ways. It is still for her, the village she fell in love with years ago, the one she has contributed many cornerstones for as well. And in the end, without those cornerstones, there really would be no village.
Email your stories about your “Neighbors to Know” to editor@sunnews.org.
