Imagine No Balloon Rally? No Little League? No parades, no fairs, no fun !!
By Kathryn Ross
Here I am sitting in the lobby of a local bank at a golden table behind a red, white and blue sign advertising barbecue tickets for sale. I volunteered for this gig because I felt it was my duty as a member of the committee sponsoring the event.
It is noon on Friday, and I am waiting for the onslaught of customers who do their weekly banking here. I have tickets to sell, but no one seems ready to bite (pun intended).
I’m not sorry I’m sitting here. I just hope that it isn’t futile, but I’m wondering if the economy is impacting my ticket sales? The people doing their banking business aren’t smiling. Who would be with the cost of everything from soup to nuts going out of sight?
Across the street, gas is selling for $4.49 a gallon. That’s hard to take for someone who started driving when gas was .35 cents a gallon. When I was just out of my teens my friend Cheryl and I would put gas in our cars so we could drive to Andover to ride our horses, buy cokes and chips for the trip, and go out for hot turkey sandwiches and French fries afterwards at the Village Café. And we still had change leftover from our $5 bills.
Really gas and food prices are about the only difference between 1970 and 2026.
In the ‘60s and early ‘70s the county was fighting a senseless foreign war, and our peers were dying in jungles and rice paddies. The Ohio National Guard killed four innocent students and shot nine others at Kent State, big business was controlling a puppet government, and people were rioting and protesting in the streets.
The thing that was different is volunteerism. Back then clubs like the Lions, Moose, Elks. Rotary, Legion, and VFW thrived. Members were busy organizing events like the Inner Tube Regatta, Minstrel Show, Memorial Day parades, pancake breakfasts and potluck dinners, air shows and fishing contests. All were volunteers.
I have a theory about volunteerism. I believe that volunteers give their time because they believe in the cause and do not expect or crave recognition for their service. That’s the one thing I could never understand when someone would call the Daily Reporter office and ask for a reporter to come out and take a photo of their volunteers and do a story. I could understand a comprehensive dinner recognizing volunteers for years of service, but not for individual events. I’d go take the pictures and write the story anyway, but I could never figure out what they didn’t understand about the meaning of volunteerism.
Well, it’s 1 p.m. and not one ticket has been sold. A less stubborn person would pack up the gold tablecloth and patriotic sign and head for home. Not me, I’m too stubborn. I’ll sit here harboring the hope that at least one person will want to buy tickets, besides the canned music is quite soothing and I have a cup of hot tea. I’m a glass half full kind of girl anyway.
Volunteerism is important. The whole project to renovate and preserve the old Babcock theatre would be nowhere if not for the dozens of volunteers who have stepped up. It would just be another deteriorating building on Main Street.
There would be no Great Wellsville Balloon Rally if it weren’t for the perseverance and dedication of those volunteers. Where would the Greater Wellsville Trout Derby be without the Lions Club volunteers? Who could pull that off every year? Look at the volunteers who care for Hank Sinkey Field and those who are coaching the next generation of big league ballplayers?
Let’s not forget the thousands of men and women who since the late 1800s have responded in the middle of the night, in the middle of work, in the middle of family events, to respond to the fire alarm in freezing temperatures and the heat of the night.
We can’t forget those emergency services providers and ambulance volunteers who undergo hours of specialized training to pull drivers and passengers out of wrecked cars, the river and forests, their own homes and at events.
Webster (that’s a book where you can find the meaning of words) defines a volunteer as a person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task, who works without being paid.
Wellsville would not be the community it is without its volunteers. Thank you.
No tickets sold.
Kathryn Ross is a Wellsville native and lifelong writer, journalist, and community activist with a long resume of volunteerism. You can reach her anytime, kathr_2002@yahoo.com
