(This begins the first in a series of occasional columns on NACo member county officials and staff who demonstrate how “Counties Care for America.”)
On May 17 and 18, Blum Stadium in Palm Beach County, Fla. will host the state’s Special Olympics Spring Games. An estimated 4,000 people are expected to visit the county, which is hosting the games for the first time.
Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts, honorary chairperson of the games, will be on hand to oversee volunteer recruiting efforts for the event. (Roberts has been a member of the Palm Beach County Sports Commission since 1991.)
A Palm Beach County commissioner for 10 years, Roberts should have no problem in attracting grass-roots help. In addition to her service on the sports commission, she also chairs the Tri-County Community Rail Authority, is president-elect of the Florida Association of Counties and is a former city commissioner and mayor of West Palm Beach.
Volunteering was a natural progression, she said, since her parents were active in the local community and organizations.
Married at 17, Roberts said she wanted to be a good role model for her children, as her parents were for her. Early in her volunteerism career, with one child, she was elected president of the local chapter of Hadassah, a national women’s Zionist organization. She and her husband postponed having additional children for five years so she could be both an effective mother and president, she said.
Prioritizing her needs, by putting her family first and properly allocating her time, was important for everything to succeed, Roberts said. Her philosophy allowed her to raise a family, participate in several organizations and start a Jewish community day school — all before running for elected office.
She learned many valuable skills while volunteering, Roberts said. She gained additional self-confidence and insight into community interaction. She learned media relations, budget management, fundraising, public speaking, and mediation skills, all of which were extremely beneficial to her becoming a future public official.
Volunteering has changed with the passage of time, she said. When Roberts began volunteering, she was a young mother who didn’t work outside the home. “It was easier for women to volunteer then than now,” she noted. Nowadays, many women have families and careers.
Roberts, whose NACo involvement spans 10 years, is presently a vice chair of the Transportation and Telecommunications Steering Committee and a member of the Member and Services Steering Committee. She has volunteered on the NACo presidential campaigns of current president-elect Commissioner Michael Hightower of Fulton County, Ga. and County Legislator Kay Carsky from Westchester County, N.Y.
If she had more time, Roberts said she’d like to volunteer for the Guardian Ad Litem, a child advocacy group in Florida.
The group screens and accepts select individuals from a group of volunteers to serve as advocates for children. Advocates volunteer in abuse cases and child custody suits and are important because they give the child a voice in the court system. The volunteers receive extensive training and instructions about handling a child’s situation from the judge handling the case. The advocate often visits the child’s home to investigate their home life.
After working many years as a volunteer, Roberts has a few pointers for successfully recruiting volunteers: Organizations should give more credit to volunteers and should recruit individuals who are passionate about the organization’s issues, she said.
People who wish to volunteer, but don’t know where to begin, “should find one group that shares your ideal and then dedicate your time to that group,” she said.
(Membership News was written by Susan Parrish, membership coordinator.)