10 A
SIUSLAW NEWS ❚ SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 2018
Volunteers
from 6A
From giving out home-cooked
meals three times a week to sim-
ply lending an ear and warm
embrace, the volunteers of
Helping Hands have been mak-
ing the world a better place for
those who’ve fallen on hard
times.
“It feeds people that are hun-
gry,” Thies said about the pro-
gram. “It gives them a place to
have camaraderie and friendship.
“We’re human beings. We all
need contact. We all need food.
We all need friendship. Touch.
It’s important. Believe it or not,
most of us are huggers, so we
give a lot of hugs. It’s important
because you can see the people
appreciating it.”
Thies is a snowbird, living six
months in Arizona and six
months in Florence, moving
back and forth with her husband.
Thies is a former accountant,
but those days are behind her.
She’s also seen her fair share of
hard times.
“I was a single mom for five
years,” she said. “When you
have kids who drink a gallon of
milk every day, stuff like that
gets hard. Did I reach out for
help? No. Because I was one of
these stubborn people who
thought they could make it on
their own. But it was really diffi-
cult.
“And if there was a program
like this, I’m not even sure I
would have gone myself out of
pride. God forbid people know
we’re struggling, right? Because
we lived in a small town where
everybody knew everything. But
I’ve been where a lot of these
people are. I didn’t live in my car
PHOTOS BY JARED ANDERSON/SIUSLAW NEWS
From left, Robert Orr, James Dale Guy and Jo-Anna Thies are just three of the Siuslaw region’s many volunteers.
Florence celebrated volunteers during National Volunteer week, April 15 to 21.
and wasn’t homeless, but I was
dead poor.”
Before she came to Florence,
Thies worked at Meals on
Wheels. Arriving here, she heard
about Helping Hands and decid-
ed she could lend her own hand.
Except, she called the wrong
group.
“I called the Methodist
Church by mistake,” she said. “I
ended up I volunteering there.”
She was speaking about the
Florence Community Suppers
program, which she still volun-
teers at to this day and loves
every minute of it.
Five years ago, the former
president of Helping Hands
came in to help at the suppers
and invited Thies to lend her
hand at Helping Hands as well.
Now she works both programs,
along with volunteering at
Florence Food Share.
Why does she do it?
“Because I can,” she said.
“Because it’s needed. When I
worked for Meals on Wheels, I
saw how important it was when
you’re the only person they’ll see
all day. It’s just something I thor-
oughly enjoy. I go home happy
and exhausted. I don’t think
there’s ever been one time that I
went home not happy. I don’t
think ever.”
Most of Thies’ time spent at
Helping Hands is serving meals.
She knows how to cook — she
was a mother of four, she points
out — but usually leaves that to
other volunteers.
“Ninety-nine percent of the
meals we make are from
scratch,” Thies said. “If there’s
something going on and we don’t
have the facility, Glen will go
and get sub-sandwiches. We also
have a Friday lunch to go, which
has water and food and things
that don’t necessarily have to be
heated, because people don’t
necessarily have the ability to do
that.”
The program helps a wide
variety of people, from locals
who are homeless to those who
are having difficulty making
ends meet.
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“Most of our guests actually
work,” she said. “But when you
try and pay rent in Florence, and
you’re not earning that much, all
your money goes to rent and the
utilities. There’s not a lot left
over. This is another way for
them to get a good solid meal
three times a week, and then go
to the churches the other two
days. I think it’s just the cost of
living here.”
It’s been hard for the organiza-
tion as well. After Helping
Hands losing its lease on its orig-
inal building a few years back,
the group has been bouncing
from church to church, looking
for a permanent home. Right
now, the coalition is based out of
New Life Lutheran Church on
Spruce Street.
“They made room for us and
they’ve been really kind,” Thies
said. “We all have the same atti-
tude here — ‘But for the grace of
God go I.’”
In addition, housing isn’t the
only problem that Helping
Hands has. The coalition also has
trouble finding volunteers, some-
thing that Thies sees affecting all
the organizations she works with.
“All the groups need help,”
she said. “You don’t have to be
on your feet if that’s a problem. I
don’t have an answer as to why
[people aren’t volunteering].
People burn out, I guess, but the
more volunteers you have, the
less burnout you’re going to
have.”
As for Thies, she doesn’t think
she’ll ever burn out.
“I feel totally whole doing
this,” she said. “In my heart, it’s
a good thing because I’m giving
back. I feel truly blessed for all
that I have.”
ASPIRE Student Mentoring
— Siuslaw High School
Robert Orr had plans for
retirement.
“I wouldn’t be sitting,” he
said. “As my wife knows I don’t
sit very well.”
He was going to do wood-
working in the woodshop he has
at his home, taking time to build
whatever his house needed.
“And sailing is my first love in
terms of sports,” Orr said. “I
would be doing more sailing and
kayaking. And more boating.”
Orr and his wife Cindy were
teachers by trade, working at
their last schools in New Jersey
for 13 years.
“I loved it, loved teaching,” he
said. “Cindy was teaching high
school math, more advanced
courses like Calculus, and I was
teaching middle school algebra
and geometry. I was also teach-
ing more advanced students, but
at the middle school level.”
The Orrs bought a home here
five years ago, stealing away
vacations whenever they had the
time. But the “allure of
Florence,” as he put it, kept call-
ing them.
Two years ago, they decided
to take the plunge and take on
full retirement, moving here per-
manently with thoughts of toiling
away at their hobbies and volun-
teering a little bit here and there.
“Apparently, I really wasn’t
ready to retire yet,” he said.
Orr began to list the number of
organizations that he ended up
volunteering for. He’s a Court
Appointed Special Advocate
(CASA), a substitute teacher and
is a Dunes City Councilor, which
he finds “completely fascinat-
ing,” learning how the city oper-
ates and what issues faces it. He
also volunteers for “some other
things,” which he didn’t elabo-
rate on.
“My wife said that this was
practically a foregone conclusion
that this would happen,” he said.
“She knows that I don’t sit still
and that I love this kind of
work.”
But the biggest volunteering
project? The Oregon ASPIRE
mentoring program at Siuslaw
High School.
ASPIRE is a statewide organi-
zation that helps students prepare
for life after high school. The pri-
mary goal is figuring out how to
get students into college, includ-
ing admissions and financial aid.
“Over a year ago, Boudinot
Kilgore knew I was interested in
volunteering and asked if I want-
ed to talk. I was looking for
something that I could really
spend some time doing and feel
good about. So the actual fit was
just right. I went from having a
couple of students that I was
coming in for once or twice a
week to being here every day, all
day.”
He absolutely loves it.
“I find that I don’t even like to
take half a day off,” Orr admit-
ted. “That means that several
meetings with students that I
could have had can’t happen
because I’m not here.
“I love the work. The students
are wonderful, and so is the staff.
They’re great people. Everybody
wants the same thing here, and
that’s the to give the best to the
students.”
He said that the work can be
complicated for students.
“The federal student aid appli-
cation is, on the surface, straight-
forward. But there are questions
that can arise. Maybe students
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are living with one parent, but
another parent lives elsewhere.
Or perhaps they’re living with
grandparents who don’t have
legal custody of the children,”
Orr said. “These kinds of ques-
tions can get complicated.”
For a student who is working
to get good grades, participating
in school-sponsored programs,
like sports, working an actual job
and just enjoying the final years
of their childhood, those compli-
cations can get, well … compli-
cated, Orr said. Especially if
they’ve never had any experi-
ence in it.
“We certainly want them to do
what they can on their own,” he
said, but even the most organized
student can need a helping hand.
The complications go beyond
just filling out federal forms.
Scholarships that are given out
locally often require essays,
which the staff of 15 ASPIRE
volunteers tutors students to
write.
Volunteers also provide stu-
dents with comprehensive lists of
the scholarships, reminding them
of deadlines and helping them
organize all the information they
need to provide.
“One of the things that we’ve
started doing is helping to pre-
pare the students for the SAT or
the ACT,” Orr said. “The more
practice the students can get, and
the more information the stu-
dents can get about those tests,
the better off they’ll be”
He has also worked with
school counselors to create book-
lets on what to expect in college
life in a larger city, especially
important for youth whose only
experience is a small town.
“What we gather here are the
pieces of the puzzle so that we
can provide information to the
students that we have gathered in
a central location,” Orr said.
For Orr, the benefits of
ASPIRE go beyond just helping
the students discover a path to
their future.
“I think a healthy community
depends on healthy children,” he
said. “I wouldn’t want to leave
out the possibilities of students
coming back, getting some expe-
rience and education, and help-
ing build this community.”
Then he takes it a step further.
“We, at all levels of this com-
munity, have a need for good
jobs. There’s a need for doctors.
There’s a need for other profes-
sionals. To me, a healthy school
that is graduating students who
have a direction, who are moving
on to things that they want to do,
whether it’s college or trade
school or work, helps attract
other people to the community. I
think if the people understand the
relationship between the school
and the community, there’s a bet-
ter chance the community will
support the needs of the school,
large or small.”
And it’s the entire community
that helps the ASPIRE program
exist. If it wasn’t for the scholar-
ships that organizations provide,
then the students wouldn’t be
able to afford the ability to build
the community that the Siuslaw
needs.
“With the scholarships and the
support the students receive,
there’s a real blending or meld-
ing of purpose,” Orr said. “For
that to exist is helpful to many
parts of the community. For
example, the clubs: Rotary, the
Lion Club, the Oddfellows,
Kiwanis. These clubs are very
much involved in raising funds
for their scholarships and in sup-
porting the students in other
ways. I think that gives people
who are involved with these
organizations a sense of purpose.
So I think that’s good for them.”
In all, those organizations
exist because of volunteers.
“I believe that volunteering
provides services to the commu-
nity that are needed,” Orr said.
“While I happen to be enthusias-
tic about this program, I see all
the other things done in this com-
munity that are hugely impor-
tant.
“People volunteer for a num-
ber of different reasons, but I
think there is a great benefit to
the volunteers themselves. It
gives us a sense of purpose. It
gives us a sense of meaning. And
I think there are a lot of people
who would be lost without their
volunteering opportunities.”