PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson County’s volunteer spirit was celebrated Tuesday at the 11th annual Heart of Service awards, where seven people were singled out for their contributions to the county.
“This is a day about community, and about passion and commitment and where the two join together,” said Sound Publishing’s West Regional Publisher Terry Ward, group publisher of the Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum.
“It’s about ordinary people with extraordinary community accomplishments, seven persons whose unselfish efforts have made Jefferson County a better place.”
The event is jointly sponsored by the Peninsula Daily News, the Rotary Club of Port Townsend (noon club), the Port Townsend Sunrise Rotary Club and the East Jefferson Rotary Club.
It took place at Fort Worden Commons, the time and place of the standard noon club Rotary meeting, with a crowd of about 120 people in attendance.
This year’s honorees were:
■ Elma Beary, Chimacum School’s indefatigable volunteer who, nominators say, is “the heart of our school.”
■ Linda Herzog, who established Quilcene Conversations, which led to a number of improvements in her adopted hometown, and who continues to work for a better, safer community.
■ Ben Rolland, a Port Townsend High School senior who co-founded the Port Townsend Youth Entertainment Coalition, a 4-H/WSU-chartered club aimed at providing safe and drug-free activities for young people.
■ Bill Putney, who provides engineering and technical expertise to many organizations, including volunteering as the project manager for installation of an automated weather station for Jefferson County International Airport.
■ Olivia Ejde, a Chimacum High School senior whose volunteer work has encompassed everything from bringing holiday cheer to assisted living community residents and raising funds through the school’s Interact Club to serving on the 4-H Robotics Team, the Roboctopi, which has received national attention.
■ Bruce Starr, who is in his 12th year of volunteering for the Gatheringplace, a private nonprofit that offers enrichment programs for adults with disabilities, and who had provided services to the Tri-Area Food Bank Association for 27 years.
■ Helen Cleveland, longtime volunteer for the Habitat for Humanity Furniture and More Store, the Port Townsend Film Festival, Centrum and the Port Townsend Visitor Center.
Ejde and Rolland were recipients of youth awards.
All were present Tuesday except Cleveland, who had left earlier this week for a planned vacation to Europe.
Putney said volunteerism offers people opportunities to accomplish what they otherwise could not.
“Being a volunteer is not just spending a lot of your time and effort,” he said.
“As a volunteer, you might get jobs that you wouldn’t be hired for. You get to do a lot of things and there is usually someone there to show you the ropes.”
Ejde first thanked her mother, Chimacum School Board member Maggie Ejde, saying, “I personally won the parent lottery.”
“I am who I am because everyone supported me and believed in me,” she said, her voice cracking. “I don’t know why or how, but they did.”
Herzog said volunteers benefit the community, but that the opposite is also true.
“If anything is needed or wanted in Quilcene, there are Quilcene residents who just go and do it,” Herzog said.
“We have more community engagement in our town than any place I’ve ever run into.”
Rolland is a second-generation honoree: his father, Seth Rolland, earned the Heart of Service Award in 2013.
In his remarks, Rolland highlighted the Port Townsend Youth Entertainment Coalition.
“Our goal is to not only put on these events but to provide an outlet for kids to come to us with their initiative and their ideas,” he said.
“So if anyone knows young people, teenagers in this community, please encourage them to contact us.”
Beary was credited as a “core volunteer” at the Chimacum School District, making sure that every student has needed school supplies whether their family can afford them or not, according to Jefferson County Library Director Meredith Wagner.
Beary passed on the volunteer spirit: “Anybody who has any time and wants to do something useful, come on out to the Chimacum School District and we’ll put you to work.”
In his remarks, Starr introduced his developmentally disabled daughter, whom he said “is the reason I got involved with Gatheringplace in the first place.”
While Cleveland was not present, her friend Hilda Anderson repeated some of her quotes through the years.
Cleveland told Anderson that volunteering has exposed her to people and opportunities she would have not known otherwise and it also “kept me out of trouble.”
“You are always well-treated as a volunteer,” Cleveland told Anderson.
“And besides, what are you supposed to do, sit home all day?”
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
