Volunteer Appreciation Month
The Oberlin Heritage Center is a fortunate organization because it has many, many wonderful volunteers drawn from all walks of life! We have volunteers ranging in age from the (pre)teens all the way up to the"not telling anymore" age, and all of these wonderful people bring to us special skills and talents and fresh ideas. Some of our volunteers are weekly regulars; others sign up to help out as needed at special events and projects. All of which is to say, whatever your aptitude and schedule, we can almost certainly find the perfect niche for you somewhere in our organization. (Just ask our current volunteer force!)
Take a minute to meet a few of our volunteers! (We have so many excellent ones that it's very difficult to choose just a few, but bear with us as we mention just a few.)
Take Eugenia Bobo, for instance: She's a former computer specialist with the Federal Aviation Agency and now fills her time with, among other things, playing tennis, writing, taking an African-American history course at Oberlin College, and fine-tuning her drawing skills. She also is on our Board of Trustees and serves as a tour docent for group tours--where she puts much of her new-found knowledge about African-American history to good use!
If indoor stuff isn't your style, have a look at the work done by Bert Latran, Jr., US Army veteran and Founding Board Member of the Boys and Girls Club of Lorain County. He's a recently-returned Board Member and, for about the past decade, has headed the Pride Day Community Clean-Up effort at the Oberlin Heritage Center, a task for which he is imminently suited. (In his "real" job, Bert is an arborist and owner of a trimming company--and, yes, that is he in the photo to the left.)
And if that's not "history-oriented" enough for you, consider volunteer work on the research end of the production. College student Adina Langer, for instance, is helping with the documentation and organization of our collections as we prepare to reconsider what furnishings are on display and which in storage--our research will be more thorough, and our objects more safely stored, because of her help! Or look at retiree Lois Sook--one afternoon each week, she comes in and helps our with organizing our research resources, most recently our obituary files, used by genealogy researchers.
The upshot of all this is that, in an organization like the Oberlin Heritage Center, there's room for everyone, and everyone's work is needed and appreciated! So a huge "thank you" to all of our fabulous current volunteers! Without you, the Oberlin Heritage Center wouldn't be the exciting, vibrant, and dynamic institution that it is!
For those who aren't yet volunteers, the ball is now in your court. This time next year, it could be your name in lights! But that's not the best reason to join us--the best reason is because you support our mission to make Oberlin a better place to live, learn, work, and visit, and because you care about preserving Oberlin's rich heritage. Won't you consider joining us?
New interesting fact: According to the Urban Institute, each year Americans aged 55 and older volunteer time and service worth $161.7 billion. Amazing!
