In honor of National Volunteer Month, the Volunteer Center held it’s Volunteer of the Year event on Thursday, April 21, at Temple Beth El. Thirty-one individuals and five groups nominated by area agencies were recognized during this annual celebration of volunteerism. 

Ross Willard received the Adult Volunteer of the Year for promoting bicycle safety and providing economical, safe bicycles for individuals who can’t afford them. He is the founder and chief mechanical officer of the nonprofit agency, Recycle Bicycle. Each year his agency gives away approximately 900 bicycles and repairs an additional 2,000 bikes.  

The Youth Volunteer of the Year award went to Maya Smith for her work at the Capital Area Therapeutic Riding Association (CATRA). Maya began volunteering at CATRA when she was eight years old and averages 300-400 volunteer hours each year. She works with children and adults with various disabilities and helps ease them through their nervousness and difficulties.  

More than 200 local high school students spent Friday, April 8 volunteering for United Way of the Capital Region’s 14th Annual Youth Day of Caring.

Despite a cold and snowy start to the day, the students worked together with 60 adult volunteers from United Way’s Bridges Society to complete a full-scale clean-up of Harrisburg’s City Island to ready it for the spring and summer seasons.    

The winter weather takes its toll on City Island, leaving significant amount of trash and debris. The clean-up would have been impossible for the city’s small staff of only eight workers, who also maintain 27 parks and playgrounds.

Volunteers were able to tackle projects that would otherwise have taken weeks to complete with visible results at the end of the day. Weeds and overgrown brush were cleared, gazeebos were painted, and the City Islanders’ press box was painted.  Additionally, the students clean along Front Street and cleaned and mulched Kunkle Plaza and the Sunken Gardens. Thanks to the day’s cleanup, the park is now ready for people from our entire community to enjoy.

If you enjoy Day of Caring as much as we do, please consider joining the 2016 Day of Caring planning committee!

Representatives from both companies and agencies work with United Way of the Capital Region staff to plan and implement Day of Caring. Your insights as a company or agency are invaluable and would bring great perspective to the planning process.  The Day of Caring committee meets monthly from April through August. 

For more information or to join the committee, contact Heidi Neuhaus, director of The Volunteer Center, at 717.724.4055, or via e-mail at hneuhaus@uwcr.org.