- April 18, 2021
- News, The Wellspring Team Stories
For National Volunteer Week we want to give a huge heartfelt thank you to all our wonderful volunteers! Your dedication is essential to Wellspring Calgary – you make everything we do possible, and we are grateful to each of you.
We asked our members to share their messages of thanks to the volunteers that have impacted them and their experience with Wellspring Calgary. Read them below.
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Volunteers don’t get paid, not because they’re worthless, but because they’re priceless
– Sherry Anderson
Musical tribute
By Kathleen Robinson
About a year ago, I felt so very thankful to Wellspring for the lifeline being offered through Zoom programming, that I wanted to say thank you, and my first thought was to sing You’ll Never Walk Alone, which almost seems to embody the very core of Wellspring.
That fell flat immediately.
I had taken the introduction to ukulele classes and had been a regular at Campfire Classics for more than a year. But, in retrospect it was the community I loved, not practicing the ukulele. I couldn’t fumble through even the most basic version. So, I adapted a much, much easier tune to create We May Be Isolated, but We are Not Alone.
https://youtu.be/2RUaOAEFjloHere we are a year later. Still Isolated. Still not alone, thanks to Wellspring.
One of the many Wellspring Zoom classes I attend is Open Mic and the dedication, warmth, joy and acceptance exuded there has inspired me over the past year to actual practice.
So, I have taken another stab at You’ll Never Walk Alone.
I tinkered with the words again, but just at the beginning to really underscore my deep appreciation of Wellspring Volunteers. Each one a pearl beyond price.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Each and every one of you.
Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.
– Elizabeth Andrew
What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good.
– Aristotle
All Hail the Super Heroes
By Ian Robinson
It is difficult to express in words what the volunteers of Wellspring (or, as I like to think of them, Super Heroes) have come to mean to me since I started hanging around in 2017.
In the most prosaic terms, they help keep the doors open and the lights on and the machinery of the place moving. Wellspring probably couldn’t exist in its present form without them.
What is there to say about people who choose to give freely of their time and energy to a cohort of people who are often experiencing the worst time of their lives? There are moments when being at Wellspring is difficult and heart-wrenching and yet they continue to gut it out and return because they know they’re making a difference. No matter how hard it may be.
They continue to turn up and do the work and are a great part of why we can walk into Wellspring in a state of trauma and walk out feeling loved and understood and, yes, even emotionally healed. The volunteers are a big part of that.
Some of these unsung heroes have become fast friends. All have earned my respect and affection.
You make my life better, people. Thank you.
And your bravery and commitment make some guy in a skin-tight red suit shooting webs out of his wrists look like exactly what he is: A cartoon.
A Wellspring volunteer by contrast?
In my world, that’s what a real Super Hero looks like.
