❒ Ric Small lauded for longtime work in community

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

Ric Small hasn’t sought personal glory as he’s counseled Benicia’s youth. In his words, he just saw a need that he could fill.

But the Benicia Police Department had other plans.

Officers recently chose Small to be a police chaplain after deciding he deserved recognition for mentoring students at Liberty High School. On Thursday Small was given the Youth Service Award in the category of ministry in a ceremony in Vacaville.

Small, 58, has lived in Benicia for more than 30 years. He’s owned his own business, Alonzo and Small Insurance Agency, for nearly that long.

Also just about as long ago, he and his wife, Kema, began working with Young Life, a nondenominational Christian group that counsels children.

Initially, the Smalls led the program from their home, then took it to Northgate Fellowship Church, where it’s grown to serve more than 100 youth.

When the couple retired from that work, Small didn’t expect his ministry work would be over.

He had heard a quotation from the Rev. Earl Palmer: “We never really retire from ministry.”

When the Rev. Jerry Pollard called Small and told him about Liberty High School’s needs, Small recalled another of Palmer’s sayings: “There’s the answer to that!”

In fact, Small has been part of the Liberty High School Chaplain Mentoring Program since its inception in 2005. Since it began, the program has received its own share of local and state awards, including being named the 2005-06 California State Juvenile Officers’ Association Distinguished Program.

During his years with the program, Small has met with hundreds of Liberty’s students to encourage them to stay in school and earn a diploma. He spends up to five hours each week, meeting one on one with eight to 10 students.

“I work with kids to help them through the situations in their lives,” he said. “I try to jump-start them as they work through high school.”

Through the high school ministries in which he’s participated, Small said, “You see everything.

“You see kids making it day to day. You see their family situations. You see substance abuse,” he said. “Our role is to show them the purposes of life.”

He said in recent decades, each generation has been given a label.

“This is the ‘Mosaics,’” he said, using a designation coined by author George Barna to describe a group that isn’t dominated by any single attribute.

As he counsels them, he said, he sees they have more distractions than other generations, particularly through contemporary media.

“Computers, smart phones, Facebook,” he listed. Through these, young adults keep in greater contact, he said.

“But it’s less personal. It’s not face to face. That leaves people looking for more,” he said.

“There’s a lot going on that families don’t understand,” even in Benicia, he said.

That includes drugs, alcohol and “sexting,” the sending of sexually explicit messages and pictures, particularly through cell phones, Small said.

“It’s out there,” he said. “It’s huge now, and part of everyone’s life.”

When assembling the submission to nominate Small for the reward, Benicia police officers noted he also volunteers for Every 15 Minutes, a program that tries to deter teenagers from drinking or texting and driving. Its name is based on the statistic that every 15 minutes, someone dies in an alcohol-related collision.

In Benicia, the two-day program instructs high school juniors and seniors every other year, asking them to think about drinking, driving, personal safety and the impact their decisions have on their families, friends and the community.

The nomination also cited Small’s continued participation in his church. Small has been part of the Northgate Board of Elders for 10 years, and until recently, he played bass on the Worship Team. He has also led a home-life Bible study and set up youth summer camps, sporting events and skiing trips through the youth ministry.

Northgate recently ordained Small as a clergyman, and that led him to accept the Rev. Pollard’s request that he become a police chaplain. Pollard told him the police chaplains “were running bare thread, and I felt another calling to be of service,” Small said.

His first call in his new role was to an apartment complex fire that displaced 10 families March 15 at Bay View Villas, 900 Southampton Road. “It was an unfortunate event,” he said.

In the future, he may be asked to assist police in family notifications of death, or asked to offer comfort when individuals or families face other hardships or are injured in accidents.

Patti Baron, Benicia police volunteer coordinator, told Small he had been nominated and chosen for the Youth Service Award that was given to him by the Solano County Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Commission.

Small said the award caught him “totally by surprise.”

“I don’t do the work for accolades,” he said of the honor. “I’m humbled by it.”