Anderson exemplary Brooks volunteer
Andrea Klassen Medicine Hat News
Rhonda Anderson’s list of volunteer positions is nearly as long as the hours she puts in at the Brooks Volunteer Resource Centre.
The 39-year-old runs the centre’s volunteer of the month program, arranging gift bags and letters of appreciation for each recipient.
As donations co-ordinator, Anderson also canvasses local businesses to ensure the centre has funding to run its education and training programs.
And as co-ordinator of special events, she organizes everything from volunteer appreciation barbecues to the centre’s annual Kinsmen Rodeo parade float. In her spare moments, she’s also one of the centre’s receptionists.
"I would say (she volunteers) minimum, three hours a day,” says volunteer centre co-ordinator Darcie Fleming. “Sometimes it's all day. She assists us with stuff on evenings and weekends, whenever she's needed. She sees it as her work - she wears her name tag more than I do."
Anderson, a single mother of two, first connected with the centre when she was taking the New Directions course at Brooks’ Medicine Hat College campus. The course is life skills focused, with an emphasis on work experience, self-esteem building and goal setting.
After completing a placement with the Volunteer Resource Centre for the course, Anderson stopped volunteering, but found she missed getting out and connecting with her community. In 2008, she started putting in two hours a day at the centre.
Since then, she says it’s rare for her to go an entire day without volunteering.
"I'm really happy here,” Anderson says. “It gives me more experience, and I get to talk to the public and it's really good for me."
“She's just an all-around great volunteer. It's not like she just does one thing and is gone,” Fleming adds. "She gives 100 per cent, she believes in what she's doing, and she really helps in the community."
Rhonda Anderson
Brooks resident Rhonda Anderson takes a couple hours each day to volunteer at the Brooks Volunteer Resource Centre. Whether she is organizing the volunteer of the month program or co-ordinating special events, Anderson is known as an individual who is willing to give 100 per cent in whatever she is doing to help her community.
Brooks charities meeting increased demand
Andrea Klassen Medicine Hat News
For the Brooks Food Bank, 2009 was a busy year.
"The drop in the oil patch was a big factor for us," says manager Willy Woodman who reports the charity saw about a 30 per cent increase in requests for assistance over the past year.
But, like many charities in the city of over 13,000, Woodman says strong community involvement and support helped the Food Bank meet demand in rocky economic times.
"We had a very good community effort. A lot of people made donations for us. The people of Brooks were fantastic to us," he says, adding donations of both money and food were up in 2009. The food bank also received help from local Hutterite colonies.
The SPEC Association for Children and Families, which provides after school programming and family support services in the city, also reported a strong community interest. Executive director Debbie Piper says volunteers chipped in to do everything from one-on-one mentoring to assisting with the association’s 2009 building renovation.
Much of the organization’s funding comes from grants from other charitable organizations, and Piper says it can be difficult to find new sources of support for ongoing programs such as the organization’s Boys and Girls Club.
Demand, on the other hand, has stayed steady.
“We're a fairly transient community, so unfortunately some of our programs have to be capped, because there's only so many spaces,” Piper says. “We do have wait lists, so that indicated to me there's more need out there."
However, not all charitable organizations in the city are finding an outlet for their services. Jennifer Trenerry, director of Habitat for Humanity, say her group is struggling to find families to live in the dwellings it builds.
Volunteers are currently working on a duplex in the city, and another build is scheduled for fall 2010. However, if more families aren’t found, Trenerry says the organization may have to rethink its construction schedule.
"It will depend on whether or not the need is here,” she says. “We definitely do need to have more applicants for us to continue to build."
Trenerry thinks the lack of demand may stem from a lack of awareness of the charity, rather than a lack of need.
“A lot of people may not be aware that they might qualify for a home,” she explains.
Like other city charities, Trenerry says the group is seeing significant community interest. More than 120 volunteers worked on the group’s last construction project, a duplex completed in 2008.
Cathy Corbett-Schock
Accredited Member of the Photographer Association of Canada
(403) 501-3533
Brooks, AB.
REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA 2010 ■ Celebrating our Community — 99
- Portraiture - Weddings - Commercial - Nature
52203300•03/30/10
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