At the heart of some of Allen County’s most noteworthy projects are volunteers.
They’ve played a vital role with everything from running community festivals, helping develop and maintain local trails, aiding neighbors in need, or doing such tasks as recycling or helping with community clean-up days.
Alas, there’s always the need for more help, notes Logan Stenseng, policy and strategic initiatives coordinator with Thrive Allen County.
“With every community conversation we’ve had, the one thing that’s brought up is we need more volunteers to get involved in community projects,” Stenseng said.
Thrive hopes to address that.
Stenseng and several other Thrive staffers spoke this week about their hopes to cultivate a local volunteer base to help with various projects around the county.
“We all work on different things, and we all use volunteers in different ways,” said Marcia Davis, Thrive’s director of community engagement.
There are several ways to reach out, particularly if one wishes to help, but is uncertain of who to reach out to offer those services.
Potential volunteers can get involved by visiting pointapp.org, or they can stop by the Thrive office at 9 S. Jefferson Ave., or call (620) 365-8128.
The pointapp program allows volunteers to expand upon their interests and how they’d like to help, as well as contact information.
The plan is to gauge the strengths and passions of volunteers, and then present those folks with opportunities that align with their abilities, said Summer Boren, a community engagement coordinator with Thrive.
THE NEED for more volunteers has been exacerbated since the COVID-19 pandemic, Boren noted.
“Once we had that separation, volunteers just haven’t come out of the woodwork like they’ve done before,” she said.
Another aspect is that many of the most reliable volunteers have been involved for years, added John Leahy, trails director for Thrive.
To wit, volunteers have made the Lehigh Portland Trails complex one of the gems of southeast Kansas and the envy of cyclists and hikers from across the state.
