2002 Oakland Citizen of the Year - Volunteerism
Throughout her life , she has been very active in the community on a volunteer basis. Acting as an interpreter for her immediate family and then extending this service to her local community, she has consistently been interested in assuring that communities are adequately represented in the political arena and have equal assess to the resources available within the City of Oakland . Most of her work has been geared towards children, senior citizens, and the economically challenged.
In Oakland , she is most noted for being the chief architect in the 1989-1993 reapportionment process and providing leadership to secure an electoral district in Oakland for both Asian Americans and Hispanics in cooperation with African Americans. Considering that she was a political novice and unknown, her deftness and skill at developing repoire with community leaders and her command of the subject matter was impressive and was exceedingly effective and productive. The reapportionment process is the foundation upon which political empowerment is based and occurs only once every ten years. Her sustained efforts during the three year period preceding the reapportionment process enabled her to build a coalition and consensus among all respectively communities to develop an electoral map which would be mutually beneficial to all concerns. It earned her the respect of many veteran community leaders and to this very day, her relationships with members of this original coalition remain strong.
As the principle strategist for moving her community's agenda through the choppy political waters, she was pivotal in increasing the visibility of Oakland Asian American; consolidating the Asian American community into one electoral district; and making them a plurality within that district. Having assisted her community in setting political roots within Oakland's political infrastructure, she continues to educate her community with respect to the political process and to work on multi-cultural projects which would address and serve the general community's needs and strengthen their ties to one another . Her strong administrative background and skills in the field of conflict management and resolution has served her well in her role as a negotiator, facilitator, and mediator on issues affecting diverse communities. Even as she is proud of her ethnic heritage, she has always been a "multi-culturalist" and believes firmly in the need to uplift and respect all communities and to provide opportunities, in particular, to struggling communities as a way of securing our own safety and security.
Always with a strong interest in youth development , she served on the Mayor's Task Force on Campus Safety. Co-Chairing the Campus Safety Committee with Deputy Chief of Police, Mike Meyers, she worked on the issue of safety on the Oakland school campuses trying to assure Oakland 's children would have a safe, non-violent educational environment. It was from her work on this committee that gave birth to the "dragon boat project", designed to provide youth with an alternative sport and to strengthen the ties between multi-cultural communities.
In the interest of community safety and diversity, Shirley Gee has served on the Oakland Police Department's Oral Boards since 1996 and on the Oakland Fire Department's Oral Board since 1998 in the selection of both police officers and firefighters. This experience has given her an appreciation for both the responsibilities and challenges confronting our law enforcement personnel and firefighters and an understanding of what qualifications are required in a police officer and a firefighter in order for them to be of service to the community.
Concerned with those less fortunate and mindful of those more fortunate, Shirley Gee served as a Board Member with Oakland Potluck , a 17+ year organization, which rescues food from corporate dinners and functions to elegant catered affairs in the Oakland Hills and delivers it to local food kitchens so it can be served to those in need.