The Power of the Internet….Spotlight on Carrie Tinker

carrie tinker

Soroptimist Huntington Beach got lucky when Carrie Tinker decided to do a search on the internet for women’s organizations, and we hit the jackpot when she decided to join in June, 2017!

Carrie, who not only makes a “mean” sangria (She credits her husband, Scott, for the recipe), likes helping to empower women and that being a Soroptimist gives her the “opportunity to help someone realize their potential and live their dream.”

Carrie walks the walk and talks the talk. She jumped right into her first SIHB service project, helping to prepare Mitzvah meals at Temple Beth Sholom for shelters, the Orange County Rescue Mission and other organizations who feed the homeless, and she joined the Dream It Be It joint committee between Soroptimist International of Newport Harbor Area and Soroptimist Huntington Beach.  I know she won’t be able to resist being on our other service committees, like our Dolly Wakeham and our Live Your Dream Committees, as well.

Because she is so new, Carrie is not a member of our Board this year and….I won’t speculate but, I won’t be surprised if she is on our 2018-19 Board in some capacity.

As I mentioned, Carrie likes helping women.  As well as being a member of SI Huntington Beach, Carrie is a member of the Fountain Valley Women’s Club which she joined this past January, and when she was still in the workforce (30 years as a litigation paralegal and 6 years as a legal administrator), she belonged to the Association of Legal Administrators and the Orange County paralegal Association.

Although retired, Carrie is not sitting around watching soap operas and eating bonbons.  Instead, she works out 4 to 5 times a week, attends lectures that interest her and “occasionally take some online classes.”  She says, “I really don’t know where the time goes during the day but, there is always some project or something to get done” and adds, “sometimes I like to just be home and do nothing.” Hard to believe, if you ask me!

Carrie says she doesn’t have a hobby but she loves to cook and uses her husband, Scott, as her “tester”. Also, she makes special occasions more special by creating poems.  She also said she would like to increase her involvement in SI Huntington Beach and the FV Women’s Club.  Music to our hearts, Carrie!

Carrie will be celebrating her 20th anniversary to Scott next December and feels very lucky to have met him.  She says, “he is the most kind, considerate, unselfish, funny and handsome man”.  And how they met is a story in itself: at a bachelor raffle for the American Cancer Society.  She says it’s a “great story” but, unless you ask her, you will never know!

For fun, Carrie and Scott travel to see their grandkids, who live in Denver, Colorado, Clearwater, Florida and Copperopolis, California…as often as possible.  Having never heard of Copperopolis, I had to google it, and here is what I found (a little tangent trivia, source Wikipedia).

Unlike most of the mining towns in the Calaveras County, Copperopolis’ claim to fame is not gold, but copper. It was founded in 1860 by William K. Reed, Dr. Allen Blatchly, and Thomas McCarty, at the site of the second major discovery of copper ore in the region (the first was nearby Telegraph City).

William K. Reed and Thomas McCarty founded the Union Copper Mine (and later the Keystone & Empire mines). In 1862, Reed sold out his interest in the mines and built a toll road from Copperopolis through Telegraph City. It connected with a road running westerly into Stockton. This road was called “Reeds Turnpike” and remained a toll road until 1865. Copperopolis was on the main stage road from Sonora to Sacramento.

The town grew rapidly, as the need for copper during the Civil War for material was great. The copper was sent to Stockton and then to San Francisco, where it was loaded onto ships and taken around Cape Horn before finally arriving in smelters on the East Coast.

After the war ended, mining and shipping copper proved too expensive and the population dwindled as the mines closed. However, a Boston company purchased the mines in the 1880s and mining operations resumed. The town went through boom periods during the two World Wars, when demand for copper went up again. By the time the mines closed in 1946, according to the U.S. Bureau of Mines, they had produced 72,598,883 pounds of copper worth over $12 million, which adjusted for inflation is worth approximately $160 million as of 2016.[3] No copper mining has been done since.

The first post office was established in 1861.[4]

Copperopolis has four buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places:

The population was 3,671 at the 2010 census, up from 2,363 at the 2000 census.

Lest I digress too much….back to Carrie.

Carrie and Scott’s blended family includes a son, Matthew (just turned 40) and daughter, Jennifer (Just turned 36) that are Carrie’s and another daughter, Kristen (42) from Scott. Matthew(living in Denver)  works for a nonprofit organization, Solar Energy International, whose mission is to provide industry-leading technical training and expertise in renewable energy to empower people, communities, and businesses worldwide. Why? Because they  envision a world powered by renewable energy!  Jennifer, in Copperopolis,  owns her own business, a family entertainment center,featuring bounce houses, laser tag, 9-hole mini golf and more called Barrel of Monkeez and Kirsten, living in Royersford, Pennsylvania, is a homemaker.

Carrie says, if she could describe herself in one word, that word would be “perfectionist”.

Thank you for finding us, Carrie!  We are so blessed to have you as a member of our club and new friend!

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