Volunteering makes the world a better place

Linda Taylor

Courtesy photo

I come from a family of volunteers. My father, Leroy Leibrandt, served on the Red Willow County Fair Board for 42 years. My mother, Lois, worked the open class building at the fair, spent years as a volunteer at the McCook YMCA teaching water aerobics and volunteered many hours at the Helping Hand thrift store.

Volunteering has many benefits:

It makes you a better person

You learn to look at things from a different perspective

You get pushed out of your comfort zone

You have an opportunity to walk in someone else's shoes

You question things that you never really though about before

Benefits your mental health

Volunteers do it because they want to make a change. They want to make a difference in their community and the world. Volunteers are often the glue that holds a community together.

Simply put, the world cannot operate without volunteers. Volunteering means to help with no reward expected and to give back where you live.

Let's take a minute to imagine a world without volunteers. I have heard from a lot of people that the flower pots in downtown McCook are beautiful. It took a group of people to get together, forming the Beautify McCook committee. This committee meets to work on ideas to make McCook a great place to enjoy.

We have great volunteers like Bruce McDowell, Gary Wiemers and Steve Linhart who water the plants on a regular basis.

How about the countless hours volunteered for the thrift stores or the McCook Pantry or making pies for the Red Willow County Fair for all to enjoy?

McCook has Heritage Days coming up in October. Yes, it is a McCook Chamber of Commerce event which is made possible by volunteers. Volunteers line up the parade route, organize the vendors in the park and plan all the events included in the annual celebration.

In a world of volunteers, your child may not be playing baseball or soccer because there would be no coaches. Residents wouldn't get their meals delivered from the Senior Center. There would be no Christmas lights in the park, no museum visits, no Halloween parade. There would be no theatrical performances or musicals at the historic Fox Theater.

Today the biggest need for non-profit organizations are volunteers. We are fortunate to still have the Optimists, McCook Rotary Club, Knights of Columbus, Eagles, YMCA and more, but they are in regular need of volunteers.

Ultimately, it is our get-it-done attitude that moves our community forward. The strength of McCook and surrounding communities is people and our passion for what we do.

Last week, the Hitchcock County News had a story about Bev Singer of Stratton and Beth Kollmorgan of rural Stratton/Trenton, the new music teachers at Hitchcock County Schools. Both of these grandmothers are retired, but heard the school was unsuccessful in hiring a music instructor for the 2023-24 school year. With grandchildren attending the school, the students would miss the opportunity to enjoy music at school.

The music program simply ending just did not sit well and the two ladies volunteered to step up and do something about it. They worked with the school board to make it happen and are keeping the music program alive. In the end, the Hitchcock County School, the students and the community are all winners.

Another great example of volunteers stepping up to make something happen was featured in a recent Gazette story about Imperial landing the Class C State Jr. Legion Baseball Tournament. Several hundred people from out of town visited Imperial for this tournament, which happened because of countless donations of funds and more importantly, volunteer hours. It was a community effort that made this event possible. Great job Imperial, using a get-it-done attitude to work together with great volunteers.

Are you wondering how to volunteer? Start with something that interests you and reach out to those organizations.

Don't know who those groups are? McCook Volunteers (yes, a group of volunteers dedicated to organizing volunteers) has a list on the McCook Community Foundation Fund website, mccookfoundation.org, of most of the organizations and groups who are always needing volunteers.

Please take the time to visit the website and learn how you can volunteer. We would like you to be part of making a difference in our community. We would like you to be part of making all our communities winners. We would like you to be part of making McCook and Southwest Nebraska a better place to call home.

— Linda Taylor is the Mayor of McCook. She also volunteers for the McCook Community Foundation Fund, McCook Volunteers, Beautify McCook and countless organizations, groups and projects.