With more than 30 years of volunteer service for the American Red Cross, Curtis Hoberman of West Windsor has responded to more than 120 disaster incidents and has been to many disaster sites, setting up shelters for citizens displaced by fires, Delaware River floods, and other tragedies. He has also served as a case worker for the American Red Cross Armed Forces Emergency Services, helping to deliver messages from family members to soldiers stationed all over the world.
This past year, though, Hoberman’s Red Cross work led him to more comfortable venues, including the U.S. Capitol, Union Station, and Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., where he received the Jefferson Award of Public Service presented by Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez. “Your commitment to service represents the essence of the Jefferson Awards: the recognition that, within each of us, is the ability to better the world around us by caring for others, wrote Sam Beard, president of the Jefferson Awards program, “As a Jefferson Awards recipient, you demonstrate to the country that service is not bound by age, race, or education level.”
Hoberman has since been honored by West Windsor Township and the Mercer County Board of Freeholders, which issued a proclamation on September 28.
Hoberman has been involved with the American Red Cross since 1972, the same year that the Jefferson Awards were founded by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. While in high school, he received training in senior lifesaving and became a water safety instructor, and continues to serve the Red Cross teaching all levels of swimming. He also teaches first aid, CPR, and automated external defibrillator.
“In 1994, after having seen the great response of the American Red Cross to those affected by the floods along the Mississippi River, I became a disaster services volunteer and disaster assistance team leader,” he says.
Born in Washington, D.C., he was raised in Bethesda, Maryland. His father was an anesthesiologist at the local hospital in Bethesda. His mother, besides being a registered nurse and the accountant and bookkeeper for his father’s practice, did volunteer work at the local Episcopal Church, and would help any neighbor in need. “This was a powerful example to me of giving back to the community in which one lives,” says Hoberman.
Following his mother’s example, he was president of the Key Club, a high school service club that served as ushers at theatrical and performance events, cleaned up the stadium after home football games, worked at the local recycling center, and collected canned goods around Thanksgiving. “For me, the most meaningful volunteer activity was Saturday morning visits to an orphanage and boys home in Southeast Washington to befriend and spend time with the boys there,” he says.
He received a bachelor of science in architecture from the University of Virginia, Class of 1977, and moved to West Windsor 29 years ago. “I visited the Princeton area shortly after graduation in 1977, having never been here before,” he says. “I liked the quality of life that I saw then, so I came. I still very much enjoy living in this area.”
A registered architect since 1988, Hoberman has worked with various small architectural firms in the area and has been an architect with Saphire Associates since 1995.
As they always say, if you need something to be done — ask a busy person (or a busy single person such as Hoberman) to help. In 1983 Hoberman discovered contra and English dancing through the Princeton Country Dancers, and six months later became a member of the executive committee. With access to a sound system, he began the Cranbury Bog Stomp, his own monthly contra dance series in Cranbury. In 1987 he discovered Morris dancing through the Princeton area team, and six months later became the leader (squire) of the team and continues to lead the team.
In 1986 he became a member of the executive committee for the Country Dance and Song Society, a federation of contra, English country, and Morris dance groups. He served as secretary from 1993 to 2002, and is currently in his third year as chair of a grants committee, and has been a volunteer for 20 years,
He has also served on the board of directors of Pinewoods Camp, a dance camp property in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and served as its secretary from 1993 to 1998. He usually lifeguards there one week each summer. Active at Trinity Church in Princeton, he serves as a reader, lay chalice bearer, and volunteers to do whatever else needs to be done.
“The efforts of one person truly can make a difference,” says Hoberman in his speech to the West Windsor town council. “The greatness of our community, and our nation, has been because of the efforts of volunteers, ordinary people doing extraordinary things, to make the world a better place by caring for the needs of others.”
