Two Volunteers' Testimonial

When we retired a few years back, we wondered just how we’d spend our time, just what we’d do other than the usual involvement with family, church and community. We hoped to travel, to have a little fun and to be useful in some way. We’d heard several people mention good experiences with long-term volunteering with organizations they believed in and supported. Being Presbyterians, we checked out some opportunities within our denomination, and that led us to Stony Point Center. We’ve been here twice now, for a total of 8 months. Our lives are richer for the time we’ve shared.

During our current stay, there have been 16 volunteers, ranging in ages from early 20s to late 70s. Some have specialized areas of expertise, such as technology or baking, but the two of us call ourselves “generalists”—meaning we do ‘most anything that needs to be done—non-skilled—(and in our age and ability range). We’ve helped restore a 250-year-old house which will be used by the Center, sorted donated books, picked up trash and raked leaves, made curtains. We’ve hosted groups of guests, bussed tables when the kitchen staff was swamped, packaged materials for the gift shop, helped with some labeling and paper work, cleaned out an old greenhouse, painted a fence.

These services are valuable to the day-to-day operations of the Center, and we have felt needed and useful. We’ve worked so hard the two of us have sometimes “fought” over which one gets to use the heating pad in the evenings—and we’ve had fun we’ll never forget.

As volunteers and staff have eaten our meals together, met to plan and evaluate weekly happening, helped each other in various ways--as we’ve caught “The Vision” of what Stony Point Center hopes to become--we have become a group of diverse friends.

But even more than the new experiences and the friendships we’ve made, we value our feeling of connectedness to something evolving on the horizon, The Vision—the “emergent opportunities”—as Stony Point Center is founding the Luke 6 Project of commitment to peacemaking and non-violence as part of establishing the interfaith Community of Living Traditions.

We’ve listened to the discussions, been in on some of the planning; have shared hugs and prayers; felt the depth and scope of passion in those who are part of these initiatives. And we feel profoundly blessed that we, too, have been in this place at this time of new beginnings. Joyful peace to Stony Point Center and its courageous undertakings led by competent staff, willing volunteers and fueled by God’s Spirit.

--Tony and Claire Fortune

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