Monday, January 23, 2012

Meet a StarShine Volunteer


Last Wednesday, my good friend and fellow volunteer from St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Helen Swanson visited StarShine with me. Jan took us on a tour of the new campus. We were amazed at the progress in just a few weeks, with improvements and remodeling ongoing.

Our main interest, at this visit, was to look at the school library. If you have been following our blog, you might remember the ever-changing library situation at the old location. (Library A La Carte)  I am so pleased to announce that we now have a real library – not one but two!  One library will serve the K-5th grades and the other the Jr. and Sr. High students.

Helen has offered to help me set up these libraries.


Right now books are still in boxes awaiting bookshelves. We decided to start with the K-5 library. Within minutes, Helen had sized up the situation and saw that we needed some new shelving. She also recognized where they should be placed.  Knowing that the school runs on a small budget, she immediately offered to finance new shelves, to be installed by her ‘handy man’.  True to her promise, the very next day, she and handyman Jim, were back at the school measuring and planning. The new shelving should be in place sometime next week.

Helen is typical of the St. Barnabas volunteers who provide, not just financial aid, but also, their precious time. I feel so blessed to have Helen working beside me as we set up two wonderful school libraries for the worthy students at StarShine.

P.S. Helen has also volunteered to work with me on the upcoming little girls’ Etiquette Class.

More about that in a later post.

By Lois Jamieson

If you enjoyed reading this inspirational post about volunteering, you’ll want to read: