Roles will be reversed tomorrow when supporters cheer for David Kahn of Windsor as he carries the Olympic torch through Richmond.
The 59-year-old perennial volunteer is usually the guy who does all the cheering for others.
Over the years, Kahn has run school concession stands and has organized races and fund-raising auctions for school athletic programs, B’nai B’rith, health-related charities and a softball team playing in the Maccabi Games. He’s also been a regular spectator at high school sporting events long after his two children graduated.
His commitment to others motivated his now-grown children to nominate their dad as an honorary torchbearer — and likely was the reason Kahn was selected as one of 11,500 people nationwide to carry the Olympic flame as it heads to Salt Lake City on Feb. 8.
“This is probably one of the best things that can really happen to you,” says Kahn, who was moved to tears when he learned that he had been chosen, noting, “It is an honor.”
Kahn, who moved four years ago to Sonoma County from Canoga Park near Los Angeles, figures that over the years he has logged anywhere from 20 to 40 hours weekly in various volunteer functions. While living in Southern California, he served as president of the Woodland Hills B’nai B’rith and its San Fernando council, and was a board member at his local synagogue.
Currently, his energy is largely focused on running the concession stands for the Windsor High School booster club and helping with efforts to raise $250,000 to build a school football field. What makes his work even more extraordinary is the fact that Kahn has no children on the teams or even at the school.
“I believe in getting involved,” he explains simply. Kahn says a model for his service to others came from his father, who ran the family grocery store in a tiny town called Mikado, Mich., and organized the volunteer fire department there. In the only Jewish family in town, Kahn traveled 35 miles each way to the closest synagogue for Hebrew-school lessons.
Both of his own children, 27-year-old Cyndi and 30-year-old Jeremy, wrote separate letters proposing their dad as an honorary torchbearer. Carrying the Olympic flame had been a dream of Kahn’s ever since he watched the symbolic relay pass near his L.A.-area house in 1984.
“I’m a little nervous. I’m very excited,” he confesses. Kahn said a contingent of family and friends will be on hand to watch while he carries the torch for the quarter-mile leg.
A former board member at Santa Rosa’s Congregation Beth Ami, Kahn works as a clerk at Bell Market in Marinwood. When customers learn that he’ll be a torchbearer, “I’ve got people shaking my hand,” he says.
Activism often leads to long days for Kahn, who works 32 hours a week at the supermarket.
In Windsor, he is a regular fan at school football, basketball and baseball games as well as wrestling matches. “People who don’t know me ask, ‘Which one is my kid?'” he says. When he explains that none of them is, people will ask him why he’s there. To that, Kahn replies, “I’m doing it for the kids. It gives them pride to know that people really like them and respect what they’re doing.”
Kahn says he also goes to make up for the many parents who never attend their children’s sporting events.
When he lived in Canoga Park, Kahn became such a regular fixture at the local high school that he had his own set of keys to the school and an assigned spot in the parking lot. “My wife, if she wanted me, she’d call the school,” he says.
Several years ago, he had a friend who coached a championship softball team that played in the Maccabi Games. Though Kahn himself never attended the event, he organized three Chanukah runs that raised about $5,000 each to support the squad.
Active for almost 25 years in B’nai B’rith in Southern California, Kahn helped with that organization’s fund-raisers as well.
“I just like doing it,” he says. “If somebody needs something, I’ll try to help.”