Los Alamitos and the communities that surround it have long been known for their many non profits serving wherever there is a need. But these service groups are only as successful as the individuals in those communities who keep them on course. They are the lifeblood of any successful nonprofit. Like the organizations themselves, these dynamic individuals come and go. Some stay long enough to ensure the mission passes on to a next generation of volunteers. A few individuals have the fortitude to hold it together through multiple generations under their leadership. Communities have precious few such leaders within their nonprofit ranks that match the lifelong commitment to non profit causes as our own Dave Appling, who passed away on March 2.
Dave cut his teeth in business as a capable mechanic and manager of a multi gas station chain, then grew a successful commercial insurance business in Los Alamitos. Early in his career he decided to apply his business success and hands-on experience with the public to throwing his wholehearted support behind a Los Al High School football scholarship fund, giving talented but not-so-privileged athletes a needed financial boost to go to college whether they played sports or not for which he raised many thousands of dollars and provided hundreds of grants.
Soon he was asked to collaborate in standing up a much larger in scope Los Alamitos Education Foundation to support a broader range of student assistance and major campus undertakings and upgrades. There too, Dave excelled at the very thing that made him a successful businessman, his ability to reach across any aisle and enlist the support of disparate groups of donors behind a common community goal. As eventual president of the Greater Seal Beach, Los Alamitos and Cypress Rotary Club Dave Appling distinguished himself as a tireless fundraiser for numerous institutions and cultural centers around town such as the Los Al Museum, Heart of the City, Precious Life Shelter, and the Youth Center.
Long time Los Alamitos Youth Center president Tom Stretz remembers well the “deadly grip” of a Dave Appling handshake when he approached you for a contribution to one of his worthy causes. “When Dave came to the Youth Center he immediately stepped up and rebooted our whole fundraising effort. He just elevated it to another level, one handshake, one smile, one joke at a time. He had this easy way to make you feel like a personal friend that was truly sincere. Who could say no to Dave?”
Dave was a consummate joke teller and he had one for every occasion.
Still, by all accounts Dave Appling was a quiet man, centered in his mission and certain of his cause, but always open to what others had to say and patient to hear them out, says Debbie Kent, current president of the Los Alamitos Museum who spent many a museum board meeting watching and learning, she says, from the Dave Appling approach to getting things done. “He didn’t say a lot, mostly listened, but when he spoke everybody listened to him. Because with Dave you felt there was no ego, no political or personal agenda. It was always just ‘what’s best for the kids.’”
Perhaps the person who knew Dave Appling best and the longest was long time LAEF and Rotary collaborator Dave Barnes. “I wasn’t three months initiated into Rotary when I got “the handshake” from Dave about a newly formed annual fundraiser he called the Finest Annual Trout Invitational Tournament out at Crowly Lake near Bishop. He only had a couple dozen participants at the time but he radiated such enthusiasm for the event and for its potential for good, I was hooked.” That was 40 years ago says Barnes, and today the once a year fundraiser fishing derby raises thousands of dollars for the Los Al Museum and other nonprofit centers in the area, and is now supported by over 150 participants spanning four generations of donors. “That’s a fact Dave has always been particularly proud of,” says best friend Dave Barnes who is sure a lot of people, like himself, consider Dave Appling their “best friend.” “That’s how he made you feel. Like you were the most important person in his life when you were in his presence, and you weren’t in his presence very long if he didn’t leave you laughing.”
Dave was a consummate joke teller and he had one for every occasion. I recall on the occasion of receiving the Los Alamitos Museums Honored Citizen Award in 2013 (along with co-honoree Dave) I asked him after the ceremony why the applause for his award was so much louder than my own. He said, without skipping a beat, “O That’s because I packed the audience with every family member and friend I could drag in here.” And through the years since that day whenever I saw Dave at a community function he would make a point to walk ove to me a say “Hello Mr. honored citizen” . . . to which I would respond “Hello to you Mr. honored citizen.” The honor for me was that Dave and I had this little inside joke personal to just us. Turns out Dave had that little unique and personal inside connection with just about everybody he came in contact with. We were all “best friends” to Dave.
When I recently asked Dave’s longest “best friend,” Dave Barnes, to distill down for me the essence of a man like Dave Appling who has the innate skills to bring a stranger, a room full of people, a board of directors, a community together with his simple tools of kindness, respect, and humor, Mr. Barnes simply quoted the adage that Dave left all of his “best friends” over the years with, “Keep smiling.” Sounds like good advice coming from a guy who has more best friends than anyone I’ve ever known.
Dave Appling was 83.