How was your interest ignited in helping your neighbors and your community? We asked Wilsonville Rotarians and here’s what they told us:
“My first “volunteer” activity (I use the term loosely because my dad made me go) occurred when I was 7 or 8 and involved working in our church cannery on a hot summer day, canning green beans. It was so hot and dirty in there! However, by the end of the day, I was hooked! It didn’t seem like volunteering; it was fun, and it seemed like we were doing something important to help our fellow church members. I felt good to be a part of it and looked forward to working in the cannery every year thereafter.” — Leslie Hackett
“When I was a small boy in grade school we (Grade school classmates) made May Baskets on May First and delivered them to older folks in the community (Lower Logan, Oregon). I noted how happy this small gift made the folks that we delivered to, and in turn that made me happy and wanting to do more volunteering in my life.” — Jack Kohl
“In high school, I formed a political committee to successfully elect a friend student body president. As an adult, I was an active Jaycee-ette (female counterpart of Jaycees) involved in community projects.” — Doris Wehler
“I had to think a bit and then I remembered…. of course, as a kid growing up on a farm in Kansas the nearby town of El Dorado (President Obama’s mother grew up there) had a devastating tornado. It was in June in the midst of wheat harvest and summer planting but nonetheless my father dropped everything and took my brother and I to help the victims. We were part of the Mennonite Church that then and still today travels to nearly every disaster. I clearly remember sifting through the rubble of a home alongside my father and finding the owner’s diamond ring. When we presented it to her she was overcome with emotion.
“I wasn’t entirely sure of the year of the tornado, so I did what else…I Googled it. Some 300 homes were destroyed and 13 people killed. I then remembered that the tornado was actually on June 10th, my 12th birthday. Then on Google I found something even more interesting. For the 50th anniversary of the disaster the local Rotary Club funded and had built a memorial to the victims. Each year thereafter the club holds an observance at the memorial at 5:45PM the exact time it struck. On my next visit back to the area I plan to visit the memorial and the Rotary Club.“ — Richard Martens
“If I recall correctly, I was asked to coach a Little League (not the modern version, but the local version) team at the ripe old age of 17 or 18, I can’t remember which. It was a fun experience since I loved baseball and helping the youngsters was lots of fun.” — Reg Keddie