C. Allene Dering

C. Allene Dering, former resident of Napa, CA, was a preschool teacher for 25 years, and the president of Citizens United for Racial Equality. She also sang in the choir at Emmanuel Lutheran Church. Moving to Red Bluff in 1997, Allene and her husband, Frank bought Star Tax Service. They joined the Presbyterian Church, and that is where Allene became involved with the Homeless Coalition that eventually became PATH.

Allene was instrumental in helping this group become a non-profit, and had the idea to ask the churches to use their space if PATH supplied everything else needed to run an emergency shelter.

As President of the Board of Directors, Allene became involved in the local Continuum of Care, CoC, and then the four county Continuum called Dos Rios. It was Dose Rios that applied for a HUD grant in 1997, which eventually produced a three county transitional housing program that Allene named Pathways. Tehama County’s part is 12 beds for single men.

Again in 2008, because Allene was involved in the local CoC, that the Sale family offered their nine bedroom, two story house, to PATH. This home opened in January 2010 to house 15 women and children in a transitional housing program. Allene’s dreamed to one day have a year-round emergency shelter has not come to pass at this time, but plans are in the works, and she and the PATH Board have high hope of it being just around the corner.

Allene and Frank have two grown children, 3 grown granddaughters, and one teenage grandson. Her sister Marcy-Mallory Bettinelli, a graphic designer, does the graphics for PATH.