Volunteers make community special
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As I put pen to paper, or more accurately fingers to keyboard, I am feeling a bit sad. One year ago, I set the goal of writing informative articles for the Valley Journal, so when people ask me, “What do you do?” and I say “I am the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program Volunteer Coordinator for Lake County,” they will say, “Oh yes, the organization that connects nonprofits and community organizations with people 55 and older who choose to share their knowledge, time and expertise with our community. What a wonderful organization.”
That is what I hope people say, since my office volunteers, Wendy Susott, Doris Gordon and I have spent a year refining the organization, recruiting volunteers and stations and finally educating our community. What makes me sad about this? When I opened up my e-mail this morning I read this, “FYI, things are still up in the air till Congress passes a budget for 2012.” This was a forward from the Area VI RSVP Program Director, Sharon Bladen, whose office is in Hamilton. The short of this is that our program is waiting to hear whether we will be funded after April 1, but we are optimistic and will forge forward improving what we do.
I wish to share some successes during the calendar year from Nov. 30, 2010, until Nov. 30, 2011. Some facts: RSVP in Lake County currently has 139 RSVP active volunteers who have put in 9,840 hours of volunteer time — actually more than that, because often hours don’t get reported until a while after it happens. Here is a statistic I am particularly proud of: in this period of time, we have enrolled 25 new RSVP volunteers. I will again thank RSVP volunteers, because we have volunteers recruiting volunteers. Another statistic of interest: the average number of volunteer hours served per volunteer is 94.62. That is almost 2.5 40-hour work-weeks of time each volunteer has given directly to the people in this community. I repeat; that is just the time submitted to me. There is so much that is not submitted.
This is my last article for the Valley Journal; I am devoting my time to connecting more volunteers with volunteer work stations. Yes, RSVP is still very active in the community. So if you want to hear more, stop by the office at 110 Main St. Suite 5 in Polson, or call Maxine Garcia at 883-7284 or e-mail rsvp@area6aging.org. I am closing this series of articles with a big “thank-you” to all volunteers.
There are many more volunteers who are not RSVP but also give their time and energy to make our community work. I honestly believe that if every volunteer in this community or any community quit volunteering for one month, the community would cave in. Fortunately, volunteers will never quit; they are just too committed, too passionate, and too darn nice. Thank you to all volunteers, and I hope your holiday season brings you joy.
