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Pleasanton resident Ray Zarodney knew for years that he wanted to help out those less fortunate, particularly people experiencing homelessness, following his years of traveling for work and seeing individuals out on the streets.
But after he retired, and had more time on his hands, he said he couldn’t quite find an organization to volunteer at which spoke to him.
“I had to wait to hear something that resonated with me,” Zarodney told the Pleasanton Weekly. “Unfortunately, that took a while.”
That all changed last January when he attended the 2025 Make A Difference for Pleasanton Festival and learned about Goodness Village, a nonprofit organization that supports the unhoused population in the Tri-Valley by offering tiny homes in a community in Livermore.
Now, Zarodney said he hopes others can find volunteering opportunities at the 2026 festival next weekend that mean as much as Goodness Village means to him.
“I found Goodness Village, which I didn’t even know existed, through the festival,” he said. “The festival is really a good environment for people that have some time on their hands and just want to do something to help out, whatever that is … You can find a place for you to give back.”
Curated by Make A Difference, Today & Always — a local nonprofit co-founded by community members W. Ron Sutton and Jerri Long — the annual Make A Difference for Pleasanton Festival is returning to the Senior Center for its 26th year. According to Sutton, the free festival brings nonprofits, charities and other local organizations together so that residents can learn more about them and possibly get involved.
“The whole objective here is to find things you may not know about, things that you are attracted to … that will make you more connected to your community,” Sutton told the Weekly.
From helping prepare and serve meals to neighbors in need, to assisting animal shelters find forever homes for cats and dogs, residents will have plenty of volunteering options to choose from at this year’s festival.
This year, the festival will highlight all the organizations that will be specifically offering opportunities for high school students to volunteer in order to meet their required community service hours. Those organizations will have people wearing “Mardi Gras-style” beaded necklaces to make it known that they will specifically offer those youth-volunteer opportunities.
According to the press release, the festival will also offer teenagers the opportunity to get up to two hours of on-the-spot credit by completing certain tasks such as sorting color crayons for The Crayon Initiative, a nonprofit that melts down old crayons to make new ones that are then donated to children in hospitals. This opportunity is limited and will only be available to those who register for the festival in advance.
Last year, Sutton said there were over 700 attendees at the event — one of whom being Zarodney.
Zarodney said he was drawn to wanting to help folks experiencing homelessness because he knew that many of them were down on their luck and needed someone to listen to their stories.
Over the years, he searched for a nonprofit to volunteer with but struggled to find one that truly resonated with him, a factor he considered important. So after hearing about last year’s festival from his friend Sutton, Zarodney decided to check it out.
And after walking through the large variety of nonprofits, he came across the Goodness Village table where he spoke with one of the nonprofit’s staff members and realized he found the perfect match.
“I just knew, after a few minutes of talking to her, this would be my home,” he said.
Since then, Zarodney has been going every Thursday to drive residents of Goodness Village around the Tri-Valley to do errands. When nobody needs a ride, he said he simply walks around and talks to the residents, many of whom he considers friends who he sometimes takes out to lunch simply because he enjoys their presence.
He said apart from seeing how much those tiny home residents appreciate the little they have, which gave him a whole new perspective on his own blessings in life, he has made invaluable connections with those residents and the staff at the nonprofit.
“Now, I don’t call it volunteering it anymore — it’s just something I do on Thursdays that I really want to do … I feel like I’m very much a part of that organization,” he said.
Zarodney advised that prospective volunteers should, like he did when selecting his nonprofit, dedicate time to finding a cause they genuinely care about to ensure long-term commitment, preventing them from volunteering only briefly before losing interest.
“Let your heart be a big part of where you go,” he said.
That’s why he said things like the Make A Difference for Pleasanton Festival, which already has such a wide variety of options to choose from, is such a valuable resource.
Sutton said the event is also beneficial for new nonprofits and organizations in the community because they can have a chance to not only introduce themselves to more people in the city, but they can also mingle with other organizations and find ways to help each other, whether it’s through direct collaboration or simply sharing valuable knowledge.
Similar to the festivals in prior years, apart from the different volunteer opportunities, residents will be able to get helpful tips about safety, emergency preparedness and wellness. Visitors can find out how to prepare a 72-hour survival kit, store water, protect important documents and prepare for the next earthquake.
Representatives from the Pleasanton Police Department will also provide police dog demonstrations throughout the festival, and there will be several wellness exhibits from Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley, the Alan Hu Foundation and Rare Disease Club.
The festival will be hosted at the Pleasanton Senior Center — located at 5353 Sunol Blvd. — next Saturday (Jan. 17) from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information on all the participating organizations and to register for the event, visit MakeADifferenceForPleasanton.org.
Who will be there
Here’s a snapshot of the organizations scheduled to attend the festival to recruit volunteers, based on early registration. Those with an asterisk denotes which ones will offer teenagers volunteer opportunities:
AARP
ACCUSPLIT Make A Difference Programs
Alan Hu Foundation
Amador Valley Lions Club *
American Association of University Women *
American Cancer Society – Discovery Shop
Assistance League of Amador Valley
Blankets for Kids
Center for Community Dispute Settlement *
City of Pleasanton Library and Recreation *
Friends of Alameda County CASA
Girls Soccer Worldwide
GoGreen Initiative *
Goodness Village
Hively *
JustServe High School Clubs *
Livermore-Amador Valley Garden Club
Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department
Lynnewood United Methodist Church
Muslim Community Center – East Bay *
NAMI Tri-Valley (National Alliance for Mental Illness)
Neighborhood Watch (Police Department)
Open Heart Kitchen *
PG&E
Pleasanton Community of Character Coalition
Pleasanton North Rotary
Pleasanton Police Department
Pleasanton Puppy Raisers/Guide Dogs for the Blind
Pleasanton-Tulancingo Sister City Association
Pleasanton Unified School District
PPIE *
Rare Disease Club *
Ryan’s Cases for Smiles – SF East Bay *
Spectrum Community Service, Inc.
Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley
Sunflower Hill
Tri-Valley Haven *
Tri-Valley REACH *
Tri-Valley Turkey Burn *
Valley Humane Society
