CONTACT director Eleanor Letcher stands at the podium as she awards Elouise Campbell (seated left) and Lorraine Corbin-Pass (seated right) the Isabelle Hickman Award while Advisory Council president Donald Cox (standing) and George Parker of Boehm Porcelains, which donates the award, watch on May 23, 2013 at the Stone Terrace in Hamilton.
CONTACT volunteers Robert Sauer (Titusville). Rosemarie Frambro (Ewing), Athene Kan (Lawrence) and Camille Sikora (Lawrence) pose at the 12th annual Recognition Brunch on May 23, 2013 at the Stone Terrace in Hamilton.
CONTACT of Mercer County celebrated the contribution of its Retired and Senior Volunteer Program participants at its 12th annual Recognition Brunch on May 23 at the Stone Terrace in Road, Hamilton.
Every year, CONTACT and RSVP spend a morning thanking 350 to 400 volunteers who provide thousands of volunteer hours at about 35 sites throughout Mercer County.
During the brunch CONTACT awarded volunteers with the Isabelle Hickman and Barbara Brown Station Manager awards.
The Hickman Award honors a long term RSVP volunteer with tireless community spirit and exceptional service. Candidates for the Hickman Award are nominated by the agencies where the volunteers provide their service and selected by vote of the RSVP Advisory Council.
The council was unable to settle on a single recipient among five nominees, so they decided to share the award between two volunteers. Lorraine Corbin-Pass of the Reading Center in Trenton and Elouise Finch-Campbell who volunteers at the American Red Cross and Capital Health System in Hopewell, as well as CONTACT’s main office.
The Barbara Brown Station Manager Award, named for a long term administrative coordinator at CONTACT, honors an agency volunteer manager who takes special care and advocates for the interests of their program’s volunteers.
This year’s award was shared between Gail Derry and Esther Greene of the County Nutrition Program hosted at the Lawrence Senior Center. Derry manages administrative responsibilities out of the project’s county office downtown while Greene is responsible for day to day operations at the site.
The ceremony’s theme was Volunteers are Legendary. The event linked the celebration of the program with many other New Jersey “legends,” such as Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen and the Jersey Devil.
Theme remarks were made by Brian Regal of Kean University who provided a narrative for understanding the devil legend and how it grew and changed.
CONTACT officials awarded volunteers with certificates of appreciation and gift bags filled with items donated by local businesses.
RSVP participants serve Mercer County as docents and guides, meal deliverers for mobile meals programs, hotline counselors, reassurance callers to the elderly and hospital patient care and auxiliary services volunteers.
CONTACT has provided a hotline for individuals in crisis for more than 35 years. It also dispatches volunteers to programs in need of compassionate listeners.
More information is online at contactofmercer.org.
,
