Websters defines volunteer as “one who renders a service or takes part in a transaction while having no legal concern or interest.”
If you’ve been reading along all season, you’ll have figured out that my folksy musings have mostly to do with promoting all that can be savored and enjoyed every Saturday during Farmers Market season. Especially the food. I mean, the word “Farmer” pretty much lays that all out for you, right?
But there’s so much more to it than that…besides the food, besides the friendly faces, and even more important than my signature folksy…it’s the FOLKS. It’s the people, your friends and neighbors, who make all the rest of it happen.
So at least once every year I like to call that out…to thank them and to remind you that nothing happens in a vacuum. Not an early potato or a vine-ripe tomato gets to our midway without people power. Or put another way…volunteers.
And it isn’t just the LFM…you likely already know that just about everything that happens here in Lansdowne is almost exclusively through the time and energy of our neighborhood volunteers.
If you already give of your time and talents, we thank you. We need you… and at least a dozen more like you. Because the sad truth is that many of the things that for decades defined our small town, have gone away…maybe forever. Youth athletics, games and races, holiday celebrations…all those things depended on someone caring enough to pick up the ball and carry it for another season.
But the good news is that some new celebrations have found a home here…from the Pride Parade, Tony Campuzano’s Halloween Kids Parade, and park clean-ups to parades to community parties at the Landing (also envisioned and built by volunteers) and movies at Hoffman Park…from Scout troops to STEAM clubs, even the long hours put in by our volunteer mayor and Borough Council…all of it powered by your neighbors…and maybe YOU?
I’ve lived here since before many of you were old enough to read this paragraph…and I’ve done my share of volunteering…in fact, maybe more than my share, and nothing to show for it….except for all of the friends I’ve made along the way, skills I might never have developed, pride in knowing that there are things that will live after me…because of me.
Don’t wait to be asked…make a pest of yourself…if I recall, that’s what I did. But make a commitment. Don’t know where to start? Go to the Borough Website or, even better, go to the main page of this Lansdowne Links edition and scroll through all of the upcoming events here in Lansdowne…just pick one and make that connection. Or stop by the Marketing Manager tent (halfway down the row) and chat us up with your questions and ideas. We love meeting you. And we’re FUN!
And make sure that you put the LEDC 20th Anniversary Arts on the Avenue Festival on your calendar! Oct. 2nd from noon to 6, rain or SHINE (we’d prefer the latter); come shop and stop by the LEDC tent …buy a shirt and get more info on how to get involved in the future of this town as it moves into the next decade and beyond.
Lansdowne is an old town with a unique history, but we are moving ahead with a new energy and a new vision of what this town should look like, and what it should offer to residents and visitors in the 21st century. We need your energy and your talent to make that into a new reality.
Come join the fun and the future!
Terry Baraldi