GUSTINE – Looking for Louis Spinazze?

Chances are, you’ll find him wherever community volunteers are needed, from working the grill at a benefit barbecue to helping string lights for an upcoming festa.

Spinazze is one of Gustine’s most active volunteers, always ready to step in and lend a hand when needed. On Sunday, Gustine will show its appreciation when Spinazze is honored as grand marshal of the community’s annual July 4 celebration.

“It’s an honor to have been selected,” Spinazze said, adding that many others are deserving.

Spinazze doesn’t see his volunteerism as any thing out of the ordinary. Instead, helping out comes naturally. “When someone needs help, I help,” he simply explained.

He enjoys being actively involved in the community.

“Gustine is a very nice town.  I have always liked it, since my first visit,” he noted.

Spinazze has lived in Gustine for 34 years but his connection to the community began many years prior to that.

He and his brother began duck hunting at the Gustine Gun Club in the late ‘60s as young adults, coming to the West Side from Los Gatos. He began meeting people while shopping in town for supplies.

“This city is filled with great people,” he stated.

At that time he was a structural iron worker by trade and his connection with Gustine was solely through his hunting hobby.

But when the opportunity arose years later to manage the gun club he took it and made the formal move to Gustine. That was in 1976 and he hasn’t looked back since.

Spinazze managed the club for 10 years before returning to his trade as an iron worker in the Bay Area. He made the commute while keeping his ties to Gustine until he retired in 2001.

Since then he has immersed himself in community activities and volunteer work.

“Whenever I get a call and someone needs something done, I help them,” Spinazze explained. There are also plenty of times he just jumps right in without being asked when he sees a need.

He volunteers to cook at the Lion Club’s annual chicken and rib dinners, and helps cook for the fireman’s breakfast and for a group of drivers at the FFA tractor pull.

“I enjoy working with the people, we (Tony Peters and Wayne Medina) have a good time working the events together,” he said. He helped grill hotdogs at the recent bike rodeo in Schmidt Park and helped work a grill at a school breakfast at OLM earlier this year.

He also enjoys helping with the toy and food drives at the holidays, helping the chamber decorate the city’s Christmas tree and hanging lights in the park for the festas. He is particularly proud of his participation in the work the Lions Club did at the veteran’s memorial boulder this year. “That is special, it came out very well,” he expressed.

Spinazze is an active member of the Gustine Lions and Chamber of Commerce but his generous spirit goes beyond those organization’s activities.

Neighbors and friends call on him for assistance and if he can help, he doesn’t hesitate to lend a hand. “He’s always doing something for someone else,” his wife Patty shared. It’s the kind of person he is.

They have been married for 10 years and they’ve enjoyed Gustine’s Fourth of July activities with their family each year. “Each year, he sets out chairs downtown for our family to watch the parade,” Patty described. This year, however, the two of them will be in the parade. Patty is confident he will still be up at 5 a.m. as usual to put out the chairs for the family. “But this year someone else will have to bring them back to the house,” Louis said with a smile.