- April 26, 2024
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Whether it’s packaging food or running a thrift store, Ormond Beach residents are willing to give their time.
Marie Halpin and Anna Stermensky cannot understand why anyone would want to stay home all day long. Volunteers for the Family Renew Community’s Secret Attic Thrift Shop, the ladies both agree that it’s their duty to donate time.
“You finish work, you retire and then you go volunteer,” Halpin said. “I want to give back to my community, and I want to keep my sanity. We have a lot of people who come in here to shop who bring us cakes and tell us they appreciate how hard we work.”
Halpin originally started volunteering in New York as a grief counselor.
“I lost a daughter at 19, and I decided I do this back for her,” Halpin said. “I thought this could be my little gift for her. I used to volunteer here one day a week, but my husband died so now I’m here three days a week.”
Stermensky volunteers two days at the thrift shop and one day at her church, Our Lady of Lords.
“It’s very healthy,” Halpin said. “Don’t sit home and mourn. Get out and get moving. When you volunteer, you meet the finest people in the world. The creme of the crop. The widows all say ‘I’m so depressed come sit down and have a glass of wine with me in the evening.’ I tell them to get out and go volunteer. Don’t sit around drinking wine and being depressed.”
“My husband is boring,” Stermensky said with a laugh. “He said it’s good that I go out.”
The two worker bees have more than just their love for volunteering in common. They both come from different countries.
Halpin moved to the United States 58 years ago from Ireland, and Stermensky moved 50 years ago from Slovakia.
“I came here for vacation, and I forgot to go back,” Stermensky laughed.
Volusia Literacy Council
Bill and Carol Rice have been donating their time to the Volusia Literacy Council since 1999. It wasn’t until they witnessed the problem first-hand, that they made it their personal mission.
“My wife and I were at a church when we came across an adult who couldn’t read,” Bill Rice said. “We felt it to be a very worthwhile cause.”
Bill Rice said he and his wife never found the time to volunteer when they were working full-time and raising their kids. He’s worked as a respiratory therapist since 1969, and he’s just now moving to a part-time position. But there isn’t much relaxing in his new-found free time.
“Through volunteering you get to meet different people,” Bill Rice said. “You could be sitting in front of the TV wasteland all day. But this is something that helps the whole community.”
Being a volunteer tutor to adult students, who many dropped out of school, has also been something that has helped Bill Rice himself.
“I’m teaching them a lot of stuff from way back when,” he said. “My math, punctuation and spelling has gotten a lot better. You have to learn the stuff in order to teach it.”
Bill and Carol Rice have been married for 44 years, and decided to do the volunteering together. They enjoyed watching the success of some of their students.
“One on passed his GED and another one has starting taking his GED,” Bill Rice said. “We’ve been doing this together for awhile, and we’re gonna continue with the Volusia Literacy Council indefinitely.”
Get Involved
Volunteers For Community Impact recently announced its first-annual Volunteer Fest. Held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 28 at the Lakeside Community Center in Port Orange, the family friendly event showcases the many different volunteer opportunities available in Volusia County.
The event includes music, Zumba, food, a bounce house, activities for children, and door prizes. Attendees will have the opportunity to peruse volunteer opportunities available with various VCI nonprofit partners, nonprofit organizations, and businesses located within the local community. Director of Development and Marketing Richard Paul said the organization is very skilled in matching people with the right opportunities.
“We have 100 nonprofits match volunteers with,” Paul said. “Giving back to the community is a win-win. When people reach out and help others, they are really helping themselves. You get to know new people and learn new skills. iI’s a really rewarding experience.
In the past years alone, VCI volunteers have given 356,123 hours of volunteer service to the Central Florida community, which is more than $8 million worth of voluntary service re-invested into our local community. Call 407-298-4180 or email [email protected] for more information about the organization.
The city of Ormond Beach also offers volunteer matching services to residents. Call 676-3324 if interested.
