Our Volunteer Stories

Carleton Class of 1967 Spruces Up Laura Baker Playground
By Jane Fenton, Director of Community Relations at Laura Baker Services

A few months ago, a member of the Carleton class of 1967 contacted me about doing some kind of service project during their reunion weekend in June. I agreed, wondering how easy was it going to be to organize all these far-flung people convening for a few days in Northfield. Thanks to the tireless efforts of class member Hal Hart, over 35 volunteers showed up last Friday to rehab our playground and host an afternoon bingo game for our clients.

The result: a new lease on life for our old playground, and a real feeling of accomplishment for our new friends from the class of 1967. They sanded, sawed, scraped, painted, trimmed, built a sandbox cover and demolished an old culvert playtube in just a few hours. Never underestimate the power of a group of committed people!

From Volunteering to Friendship

Many of us forget how important it is to have a friend who just shows up and hangs out with you. However, Laura Baker Services tries not to forget the importance of friendship by allowing friendships to blossom through volunteer opportunities. The friendship between Janet Tritch and Margie, a longtime Laura Baker client, is just one example of the positive impact of volunteering.

Janet Tritch volunteered at the 2006 LBSA Charity Golf tournament and decided to apply as a volunteer to spend one-on-one time with a client. “I wanted a meaningful volunteer job that involved having an ongoing relationship with another person,” she explains. “In college, I volunteered with Special Olympics and got hooked.”

Margie and Janet get together a couple of times a month, enjoying each other’s company. They share some interests, such as baking, shopping and watching old movies. Margie says the main pleasure is “just having someone to interact with” throughout the month. Although they enjoy simple activities like shopping together, Janet believes the time they spend together is more than volunteering. Janet says “it started out as volunteering, but now it’s become a friendship.”

Why Volunteer? College Buddies’ Perspective

In the past I was employed by Laura Baker.  As an employee, I realized that although the staff is very supportive and do create a healthy environment, many residents lack a crucial part of a healthy life – they rarely surround themselves with people that are not telling them what to do.  I became a college buddy, because people need friends that aren’t distracted by a professional boundary.  Participating in the Laura Baker community has been very rewarding.  My buddy shares with me an innocence and trusting vulnerability that is not often shared by others.

 —- Jon Chang

I had never heard of College Buddies until I visited a friend at Carleton’s Activities Fair who told me about the program (he was the program director) and I was immediately interested. He made the program sound both fun and rewarding, as well as very different from the rest of college life, which is very focused on the individual rather than the outside community. This is now my second year volunteering with Laura Baker Services and I’ve greatly enjoyed the experience. My buddy has been a joy to get to know, and I feel like he has broadened by horizons, as has the whole program. In short, LBSA has engendered a great sense of the rewards of giving, and I plan to volunteer in a similar capacity for the rest of my life.

 —- Will Connelly

“I was involved with Best Buddies throughout high school and knew that I wanted to continue this work in college. I love my time at Laura Baker; it is a highlight of every week.  Each week my buddy and I spend time together walking around town, doing arts and crafts, or playing with pet therapy dogs.  Our relationship has really flourished since we first were paired together last year.  We are comfortable being ourselves around each other and I love learning new things about her each week. My relationship with my buddy has instilled in me inherent values of friendship: commitment, caring, patience and self-sacrifice.

I know my involvement in College Buddies at Laura Baker will have a vast and valuable impact on my future.  At Laura Baker I have witnessed and experienced the power of friendship as a bridge between diverse groups of people.  I have seen the importance of digging beneath surface level differences to discover hidden similarities.  Most importantly though, through my experience with College Buddies I have formed a fabulous friendship with my buddy, one that I feel consistently blessed by each time I visit.” 

 —- Rachel Foran