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RSVP volunteers: Night honors hundreds who help their neighbors

MICHAEL KELLY The Marietta Times Alan Stacy (center) talks to Jack and Elinor Paul at the RSVP recognition dinner held Monday night in the Lafayette Hotel. The annual event honors senior volunteers for the organization, which in Washington County last year contributed more than 17,000 hours of volunteer time to the community.

By Michael Kelly

The Marietta Times

mkelly@mariettatimes.com

They drive people to medical appointments, grocery stores and hair dressing appointments, package up meals for the hungry, assist at public health clinics and help people prepare their income tax returns, among many other things.

Volunteers for RSVP – Retired Senior Volunteer Program – in Washington County contributed more than 17,000 hours of their time helping others and supporting community causes in 2017, and Monday night they took a few hours to receive a bit of gratitude.

The 45th annual RSVP recognition awards event was held Monday night in the ballroom of the Lafayette Hotel, attended by about 125 people.

Much of the work done by the organization involves helping people get around. Mary Huffman, Jayne Stehle and Carolyn Miller sat together in the ballroom and talked about their work while waiting for dinner to be served. The three are dispatchers – they coordinate people who need to get somewhere with the volunteer drivers who can help them. Each volunteers about four to six hours a week, making a difference in people’s lives.

“We give people freedom, the independence to keep living on their own,” Huffman said.

“People thank us every day,” Stehle said. The destinations for their clients vary, she said, and include rides to medical appointments, hair dressers and the grocery, and visits to friends in nursing homes.

All three do other volunteer work; Miller, for example, teaches tai chi.

Sally Lee has been volunteering with RSVP as a driver for two and a half years. “I had heart surgery, and I can’t walk much anymore, but I’m a good driver,” she said.

Most of her passengers, she said, are going to the doctor or one those once-a-month shopping expeditions when they get their Social Security or pension checks. “The grocery, the thrift store, the pharmacy, the bank, Walmart,” she said.

“It’s very rewarding,” she said. “I’ve run into people I went to school with, haven’t seen for 60 years,” she said.

Across the room, Marjorie Stacy sat with her son, Alan Stacy, and several of her colleagues in volunteering. She said she helps with the 55-plus program and the hospice.

“I enjoy getting out and being active,” she said. “I like being with people.”

RSVP executive director Lisa Valentine said the volunteers are everywhere in the community, the 170 seniors having contributed a collective 17,425 hours of their time in Washington County in 2017. Many specialize in helping people who suffer from food insecurity, preparing meals and commodity boxes, 17 of them alone helping with the Franciscan Meals program. The Senior Wheels program has five dispatchers and 15 drivers who drove 25,000 miles last year, she said.

RSVP volunteers help with community health efforts such as rabies and flu clinics, assisting in paperwork preparation to give health professionals more time to attend to patients.

At the recognition awards event, Washington County commissioner David White said volunteering is “the ultimate exercise in democracy, because by contributing your time you are voting on the kind of community you want to live in.”

Valentine said the volunteers affect more than the individuals to whom they provide direct help.

“They make the county a better place to live. They volunteer at Campus Martius, The Castle, the Convention and Visitors Bureau has one that just helps people who come in, acclimating and guiding them to the community,” she said.

“They’re everywhere.”

At a glance

RSVP in Washington County:

¯Number of volunteers: About 170.

¯Hours of time contributed in 2017: 17,475.

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