(upbeat music) - Hello, neighbors.

Welcome to "Look For The Helpers," portraits in community service.

I'm your host, Cynthia Tyler.

For as long as people have lived together, there have been those who have been inspired to give freely of themselves in order to make people's lives better.

Volunteers have provided the creation and foundation for so many non-profit organizations and groups, truly becoming the beating heart of the community through their tireless and selfless efforts.

Today we take time to honor and learn about two of our many local volunteers.

Paul Elsley is one of our community's most prolific volunteers.

He initiated the Blessings in a Backpack Program in some of Kingston schools, preparing and delivering food boxes to families in need.

He's also a champion of child literacy through First Book Canada and an active member of the Kingston Rotary Club.

Erica Flint's passion for child safety led her to establish the Safe Schools endeavor, providing funds to schools for projects that address school safety.

She's also the executive director at the Fort Durham Regional Health Planning Organization.

Please join me as we celebrate our local volunteers.

(upbeat music continues) I am here with Paul Elsley of Kingston Rotary and very many other organizations for volunteer work.

Thank you so much for joining us today, Paul.

- My pleasure.

Thank you for the opportunity.

- Wonderful.

We're gonna get completely into it because you have such an extensive history of volunteering.

It's absolutely phenomenal to look at this dossier here.

So let's just start at the very beginning.

What inspired you to start volunteering?

- I was inspired by my mother.

She started a program in my hometown delivering meals to seniors who were in need and couldn't get out and about.

So she started one of the first Meals on Wheels programs in Ontario.

And apart from that, there was a great need for volunteer coaches.

And so, while I was in high school, I did a fair amount of coaching locally, particularly my younger brothers or my other siblings, teams, so that's probably where I got started.

- And that was all in the family then.

So, it was your mother, your brothers and it was just something like that.

That's wonderful.

And I see here that it was youth hockey and basketball specifically.

- Well, and a few other sports as well.

Sports is a great passion of mine and so I love to have the opportunity to try and inspire other kids to develop that same kind of passion to get involved in healthy activity.

- Absolutely, and health for children, I'm seeing a lot of this is echoed throughout all of your volunteering, specifically Blessings in a Backpack.

Now you started this program for this, what's the program about and how did you start it?

- So, interestingly, I was a teacher for 30 years and one of my students as an assignment told me about her school's participation in Blessings in a Backpack and at that point in time, I think they were the first chapter of Blessings in a Backpack based in Toronto and it had just recently come to Canada and my wife and I had moved to Kingston, Ontario, and I was looking for some things to do as I was headed toward retirement and I was really inspired by her story and what Blessings does.

So they basically feed kids on the weekends.

These are kids who are fed at schools for the most part during the week and to bridge the gap between Friday and Monday, kids are being fed through Blessings in a Backpack.

And so, I contacted Blessings in a Backpack and asked them if they would like to start a chapter in Kingston, Ontario and they said, "Yes."

- Well, that's wonderful.

Now, if somebody came to volunteer for Blessings in a Backpack, what kind of volunteer work is that?

What can they do?

- Well, you can pack food bags or backpacks.

You can deliver those, we deliver them through the schools and those are the two primary roles.

We're also looking for fundraising so people can get involved in helping to fundraise for the organization as well.

- Now to sideline into fundraising on that, you are a member of Rotary and Rotary, of course, is a internationally renowned volunteer organization that does good works like that.

What work with Rotary do you do?

- Well, I got involved when we moved to Kingston, again, I was looking for things to do in retirement and the Rotary Club of Kingston happened to be meeting across the street from where we lived.

My father-in-law was a Rotarian and he had talked to me quite a bit about Rotary and getting involved and so I jumped in to the deep end right away and because of my teaching background, I had a focus on youth programs through Rotary, adventure programs, leadership conferences, doing work in the schools, those kinds of things.

- Right, we talked about adventures and history briefly, which was a program that is no longer in service, but there are lots of other adventure programs through Rotary, can you tell us about those?

- Sure.

So there's Adventures in the Environment based in Cornwall, Ontario.

So any students interested in life sciences might be involved in a program like that.

There's Adventures in High Technology, so kids who are interested in computers, that kind of thing, startup companies, you know, we've got another one called Adventures in Citizenship, and at this very moment, another one called Adventures in Understanding where First Nation students and non-First Nation students go on a canoe trip together for five days.

- Wow, that's amazing.

- [Paul] So lots of adventures programs.

- And that fostering in between communities and cultures and having everybody build that sense of community together from childhood.

That's excellent.

That's absolutely amazing.

And it just continues onwards here.

Through Rotary, you've got the Youth Development Committee and a part of the Fall Fair and Community Outreach Grants Programs.

Now insofar as the Community Outreach Grants Program, that sounds like a fundraising project.

Is that something that's, fundraising, is that a little bit more of a struggle as a volunteer to work on that?

- It's always a bit of a struggle.

There are more and more not-for-profits seeking out the fewer and fewer dollars that are available out there.

But we've got a pretty good group of people who are quite good at fundraising and so we managed to raise for our club somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 to go out into the community each year and the community outreach grants is an opportunity for not-for-profits to apply to our club for a grant, usually in the range of $2,000 to $4,000 and we typically give out about 20 of them each year.

- That is extraordinary, that amount of money can be a life changing amount for an organization.

- Especially the smaller organizations that tend to apply to us.

They're not the great big ones that have the fundraising arms behind them.

- [Cynthia] Right.

- So these are small organizations and $2,000 to $4,000 can mean a lot.

- Absolutely.

Now, I imagine because of your life beginning with your mother instilling all of these values in the way that you've grown, what does it mean to you personally to have such an impact on the lives in your community, like children?

- Yeah, it's exceptionally rewarding.

You know, I got into the teaching business because I love working with young kids and seeing them grow and helping to inspire them along the way.

And so, I think similarly now that I've retired from teaching, I wanna keep my foot in that door.

There is such great need in the community these days, especially when I look at the number of kids who are food insecure.

Kingston is a quite an affluent community, but there are still very large segments of it where that that exists and so being able to help and to build community is something that's very important to me.

- And, again, touching on food insecurity here, we have the Food Sharing Program, yet another program that you're involved in.

Can you tell us about that?

- So back in, I guess it would've been 2016 or so, I was introduced to these guys.

It's really a complimentary program to the Blessings in a Backpack Program that I started.

So the food sharing project was feeding kids in schools during the week.

And so you can imagine it would be good to coordinate our efforts somewhat and I learned a lot from them because they had been in existence for a few years before I was, but there are thousands of kids, unfortunately, who need to be fed at school because they're not arriving at school having been nourished sufficiently and lacking in energy.

So, I partnered with them just to sort of coordinate our efforts and make sure that we were, you know, buying our food from the same places and tapping into the same supporters that would help to make our programs thrive.

- That's amazing.

And to have gone through all of these organizations, to have given so much, you know, that can be a really overwhelming sometimes.

So when you're feeling kind of rundown or like you don't have the drive, is there a special memory that you touch on that helps you keep going and helps keeping inspiring you?

- When I first started the Blessings in a Backpack Program, I got my kids involved.

So I've got two girls now, they're age 8 and 12, but they would actually help me.

It was based in my garage.

So I would just harken back to those times when my kids and I would be working away at that and that's all of, I guess, the drive that I needed to continue to go when things would be particularly challenging.

- And how wonderful that you're raising the next generation of children to do exactly as you were taught, to volunteer, to give back.

That's absolutely extraordinary.

Very wonderful.

- That's the hope.

- That is always the hope and that is what we are hoping to do here.

Absolutely.

And so just to continue onwards, again, with so much that you've done as your background in education, First Book Canada, that sounds extremely interesting.

What's that about?

- Well, my club had been involved in providing students with books in Kingston for a number of years through a program they created, but then I was introduced to First Book Canada and it's a national organization that provides books for free to kids who may not have libraries at home and so each year we would give out between 20,000 and 30,000 books to schools and organizations in the Kingston area in the month of November.

- Absolutely amazing.

That's wonderful that you could just reach out and do that for people and it all starts from volunteering.

Now, say that you are walking down the streets and somebody looks lost and they're just trying to figure out what they can do to help.

What would you say to them to inspire them to start volunteering?

- I would say, "First off, our community needs you."

I find these days that municipal governments are stretched to the limit.

They don't have enough funding and so I think this is a time when service organizations and churches and other organizations that do help to build community are needed perhaps more than ever and so I would tell them that the need is exceptional and great and that there are already lots of organizations that exist that can provide you with the opportunity to help your community.

You don't need to create something on your own necessarily.

There are many organizations that are out there doing this work and so it would simply be a matter of coming out and checking us out and seeing if there was something that we do that might be a passion of yours.

- Well, if you wanted to help them find that passion, how do they find out more information about your programs like the Blessings in the Backpack Program?

- Well, we've got websites and so we can provide links to those websites so they can do a bit of reading and research and check us out or we would simply invite somebody to come out to a Rotary meeting or to one of our events.

You know, we've got Fall Fair coming up and we're gonna be manning the gates.

So I'm looking to recruit 100 volunteers to look after the gates for four days at the fair.

So there are lots of activities that we do.

We work in a community garden as well nearby.

So, you know, if you're a gardener, perhaps you could come out and help out with that.

- There's something for everybody.

- [Paul] There is.

- What kind of time commitments and physical activities, I know a lot of people can be limited by their own abilities and they might only have a little bit of time to give.

What kind of a volunteer opportunities would they have?

I mean, standing at the gate, is that an hourly position?

What's that like?

- That shift is four hours in length, so you're right, it might not be for everybody, but we also have a couple of seating spots where, you know, somebody who's maybe less mobile could sit at one of the gates and help out in that way.

Really, it's up to you.

You, could put in, you know, 20 hours a week if you wanted to, if you had the time, or you could put in two or four hours a week.

It's really up to you and there are a whole variety of activities, some that are less physically challenging and others that are perhaps a little more physically challenging.

One of the things that we like to do is call seniors in their homes.

It was something we started doing during the pandemic when everybody was so isolated.

- [Cynthia] Oh, wow.

- Just to touch base with them and know that somebody cared.

- And to ease the loneliness of individuals.

- Exactly.

And so that's, you know, that's a particularly good one for some of our more senior Rotarians.

- That's absolutely incredible.

Well, thank you so much, Paul, for being with us today.

Thank you so much for your years and years of service and so many different organizations that you are serving.

We're so grateful to have you and we wish you continued success in all of your future endeavors.

- Well, thank you very much.

(upbeat music) - I'm here with Erika Flint, chairperson of the Safe Schools Endeavor.

Thank you so much for being with us today, Erica, it's good to see you.

- Really appreciate the opportunity.

- Wonderful.

So we're gonna dive right into it.

Tell me about your background and how you got inspired to volunteer.

- Yeah, so I was actually raised by a single parent.

One of my aunts lived with us until I was nine.

So I joke that I had two moms before it was cool and just as long as I can remember, it was sort of a mutual where we did need some help and so the community always kind of rose to that.

But, my aunts, my mother, my grandmother, extended family were also those givers and those volunteers.

So it was modeled for me, but also a bit of a recipient as well.

- Excellent.

So you volunteered pretty much your entire life?

- Yeah, so I grew up in a community to this day that really takes care of their neighbor, Croghan and Lewis County.

They have lots of, you know, fundraisers and things that they do to give and care for their own and I was able to be part of that as a child and a little bit further away now, still try to support that.

- That's right.

So that took you into the Safe Schools Endeavor.

Now, what is that and how did it start?

- Yeah, so that's the most recent initiative I've been involved with and in 2018 after the Parkland Florida School shooting, it was really a point in time where I wanted to sort of stop talking about it and start doing something and while I didn't feel that I could maybe make a impact in the national conversation, here locally for both Jefferson and Lewis County Schools, a group of us came together, pooled our resources, our time, our talent and created a fund that we released to schools every September to allow them to apply for different projects that they believe will help make their school safer and so since 2018, we've been able to award over $100,000 to Jefferson and Lewis County Schools, sponsoring over 50 projects that do just that.

- That's amazing.

What a wonderful way to make a contribution to the community, especially locally.

Now that you've partnered with the Northern New York Community Foundation in order to bring this about, what are some examples of programs that the Safe Schools Endeavor has created?

- Yeah, so we couldn't do this without the Northern New York Community Foundation.

This is where the fund lives.

They give us so much support and ensuring that the projects are what they need to be and so really can't thank them enough.

As far as the projects goes, some more recent ones is we sponsored a therapy dog at Indian River School.

We have sponsored lots of equipment like radios, monitoring systems, cameras, security cameras, things that help ensure that the building is safe.

We have a couple schools who recently put security film type glass in their entryway, vestibule, so if there was any type of shooting, it would help be resistant to that.

Tons of programs that are aimed for the students, like anti-bullying, different projects that create a culture of kindness and inclusivity that lends to ensuring that students are healthy and safe.

So the list goes on and on.

But what's really meaningful and unique is that these are which each district picks for themselves.

So it's not a one size fits all.

The needs of Indian River might be very different than a school like Copenhagen.

And so we allow the schools to do what they feel is best suited for their needs.

- Absolutely remarkable.

Now you are a mother yourself.

So this sort of subject matter really, really hits close to home to you.

So what does it mean to you personally that you have had, if you've been instrumental in creating these kinds of programs for kids?

- Well, I think personally it comes back to that I want to know that I'm doing something.

The only failures in action, whatever speaks to you, whether that's school safety or animal cruelty or food insecurity, is doing something will make a difference.

Sitting on the sidelines just really has never been an option for me and so I will not pretend that I think it's enough.

I definitely believe we can always be doing more, but at least we can look back and know that not only are we doing something, but we're sending a message to the schools that we care and they're not in this alone and if just that is something, I think it counts in a pretty impressive way.

- Absolutely, it is and you're also sending that message to the children.

You are setting a beautiful example of service and giving back.

That's really excellent, excellent stuff.

Now going back to your volunteer time before the Safe Schools Endeavors, can you tell us any kinds of of volunteer projects that you chaired before that or worked on?

- Yeah, sure.

So probably I served on countless boards, I shouldn't say countless, but several, several boards.

So I think that's one way that I've been able to give back is some leadership, but also try to be a hands-on board member.

So many of these organizations have a lot of different fundraising events.

They have a lot of different community engagement.

So tried to really stay active, donate to and involved with that.

But also, you know, sometimes people don't think about it, but giving blood regularly is a volunteer act and that most people can do.

So just try to be open to the whole gamut from whether it's helping a neighbor, to donating blood, to maybe serving on a board, but there is an opportunity for everyone out there to give and I will say, without a shadow of a doubt, you will get back so much more than you give.

The satisfaction of helping other people is priceless and, you know, so I do it in an little bit of a selfish way because it does bring me so much joy.

- Is it really selfish if we are giving selflessly?

Is it really though?

I know.

So in all of these fantastic endeavors that you've given, what is a really special memory that stands out to you?

So when you're struggling sometimes or you feel that it's not worth it, what is a wonderful crystalline memory that you touch on to keep you motivated?

- I think a recent one, it was a couple years with Safe Schools Endeavor, that one is hard to measure because when you do preventive work, you sort of don't know what you've stopped from happening.

But we helped a school put in a visitor monitoring system and they contacted us shortly after installing it and said, "Had we not had this, we just had a person show up," what they called hot today, "And we would have potentially sent this child "in that person's care "and avoided something that could have been," you know, I guess we don't know, but could have been quite unfortunate.

So that's one of those that keeps me motivated.

I think it's easy to sort of relate to and one that I'm glad we could be part of helping.

- That's amazing.

I can't thank you enough for having that kind of initiative.

Now, say somebody wants to volunteer for these Safe Schools Endeavors.

What are some roles that volunteers can do in your organization?

- Yeah, so one that comes to mind, because many of us were busy last night baking, but we actually do bake sales.

I mean, every penny that has been raised from Safe Schools Endeavor has literally been grassroots.

It is all volunteer based.

When you hear the kind of number that we've been able to raise and give out, it's extra astonishing because it's truly from $5 here and there and what's really inspiring is we asked a few people to bake and all of a sudden others heard about it and they're asking us to bake.

So I think that that's just speaks to the generosity of the communities we live in.

We also look for people to work, help us with marketing, we look for people to help us be in contacts or point of contact with the schools.

We have some schools very engaged and others that we don't know as well, we don't have as close of ties.

So anyone that has close ties to Jefferson and Lewis County schools, it's really people help us write thank you notes to each individual donor.

So it's grassroots.

There's a a million ways you can help with Safe Schools Endeavor.

- Well, excellent.

How do they reach out and find information about you?

- Sure.

We have a Facebook page, which is Safe Schools Endeavor and sending a private message through that is a very easy way.

And then I actually share my email as well as, again, can't get any more grassroots, but that's another way too.

- Fantastic.

Now, just to wrap this up, say you're walking down the street and somebody just comes right up, you know, walks past you and they kind of got something and they're flipping through and they're just trying to figure something out about helping, what words would you give them to inspire them to volunteer.

- Do something.

What speaks to you?

What cause speaks to you?

There will be, in a quick Google search, a whole bunch of non-profits and a whole bunch of organizations locally that are doing something about that.

Give them a call and go from there.

- Excellent.

Well thank you Erica so much for being with us today.

We very much appreciate you being here and we wish you all the success in your future endeavors.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - It's a reminder that bears repeating, no one achieves anything alone.

The world needs help and even the smallest amount of help can change the course of a life.

We hope that you're inspired to go out into our world and become the helper that we all look for.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues)