(upbeat pop-rock 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 nonprofit 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.

Ken Knapp is a local historian with an interest in Indigenous First Nation peoples and enjoys educating others about their fascinating history.

Dawn Cole, executive director of the United Way of Northern New York, shares her passion for helping those less fortunate and how you can get involved.

Please join me as we celebrate our local volunteers.

(upbeat pop-rock music) I am here with Ken Knapp, a vocational archeologist with a special interest in the Oneida, Onondaga, and Mohawk nations.

Thank you so much for being with us today.

We appreciate that.

So let's get right started with it.

You're an archeologist.

How did you get started in that?

- Well, I got started really when I was a really small child, actually.

My grandfather was one of the collectors in this region in the first half of the last century.

So my childhood kind of memories start with running upstairs in Watertown here to his office in Bishop Street that was full of artifacts, and it's hard not to get inspired by something like that as a kid.

And I've never really kind of looked back.

I've always been totally entranced and in awe of the stuff and the people that were here.

So, I mean, that's just kind of where I started.

Never really stopped.

It was a bug I got bit with.

- So now that passion translated into something much, much larger throughout your career.

Now, what inspired you to start looking for Indigenous First Nation artifacts?

- Well, a lot of it was following up on what I learned about these collectors and what they had found and what was going on in the archeological world.

And there was just a realization that, unlike a lot of places in New York State, really little was known scientifically about our area up here.

So that kind of combined with just my passion for wanting to know what happened and know who these people were, really just kept inspiring me and kept broadening my horizon so that, you know, I more and more got involved with archeology.

I helped found the local New York Archeological Association chapter, Thousand Islands Chapter, in the '90s.

Did a lot of stuff with other archeologists and just kept broadening my horizons and found myself, like, helping out in a lot of different ways with the archeological community, I guess.

- And that volunteer work that was... Now, you were, as you like to famously say, you're not paid to do this.

- No, no.

- This is a passion and a joy for you, and you don't wanna be paid for it because you're so passionate about it.

So what sort of volunteer opportunity did you come across that made all this possible?

- Yeah, well, I mean, some of it... And I do a lot of work with the three nations that are involved here: the Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk.

They have a great interest in our region because they consider this ancestral homelands to them.

And the folks that were here prior to us showing up were ancestral to them.

That's how it's considered.

And so, of course, we have modern laws that, you know, call for human remains and funerary objects to be returned to the nations.

And these are all over institutions in the United States and New York State and whatnot.

And so they call on me occasionally to research specific sites that are related to Jefferson County, so they can document whether they are actually funerary objects or there are human remains need to be followed through and returned, things like that.

So I do a lot of that.

They also ask me to review cultural resource reports.

Because in our area, because we have such a rich history of Native American archeology, that a lot of projects need to have surveys done to see if there's, you know, anything there essentially.

So they had me review those.

- Excellent.

So, now, if somebody who loves to dig in the dirt wants to come and help out, what kind of volunteer opportunities does a vocational archeology offer?

- Well, the first place I would check would be the New York State Archeological Association, where there's a local chapter, the Thousand Islands Chapter.

They're online.

You could find them.

And there's ways to volunteer there.

And also, I know in a lot of areas around here, such as in the past, Fort Drum out there, their archeological program, they have internships so that folks can go get involved and get some hands-on experience.

And still to this day, there's just not a ton of professional archeological work being done in our area, where, unlike in other parts of the state where they have constantly efforts to have local folks and other folks come in and join and participate, unfortunately, we just don't have a lot of professionally conducted archeological excavations here where you can kind of set it up to have the public involved.

So someday I hope to see that change.

- So there is a need for volunteers to come in and help explore and repatriate this amazing history of these First Nation tribes.

- There is.

There is.

And probably a big first step to that is hopefully seeing more involvement on the scientific professional level from institutions in terms of sponsoring archeology up here where they can have oversight and the educational ability to bring students or volunteers in and train them and show them, you know, what a real archeological dig is about and for.

I hope to see more of that.

We've been sadly lacking in that up here.

- Well, this is, again, why we're talking about this.

So people become aware of it.

Now, some of the other endeavors that you've done in your life.

We've talked about that you do volunteer for your local supervisory board.

Is that correct?

- Yeah, yeah.

I'm on a local town council.

And, yeah, I mean, if anybody's ever been involved with local municipal politics, it's mostly a volunteer.

- [Cynthia] It is, but it's so necessary.

- It's such a necessary thing.

- [Cynthia] Yes, definitely.

- So, you know, and that's just some of that just stems from wanting to see our community- - [Both] Grow and prosper.

- And, you know, I was brought up with a sense you have to give back to your community, too.

- And now in giving back to the community, you've also really helped establish the Thousand Islands Museum.

We spoke about that.

- Well, yeah.

What I've done for them is able to help them set up some displays.

'Cause they'd have some remarkable Native American materials there.

But also I do fundraisers for them.

Every year we do a boat tour where I basically narrate a tour through the islands and describe a lot of the goings-on and, sort of, the history of the Thousand Islands in terms of the Native American viewpoint.

And also it goes hand in hand with kind of, essentially, the creation of the Thousand Islands, which really has been over the last 13,000 years.

- [Cynthia] Geologically speaking.

- Yeah, because- - That's fascinating.

- You can't understand the people that lived here at any given time unless you understand what the landscape looked like.

And, you know, 10,000 years ago, it is not the landscape that we have now at all.

- That's true.

And now you're looking through that long lens here.

Now, does that help inform you with your volunteer work today?

- Yeah.

- Seeing all the rich history of these peoples, how does that inspire you to want to help people today?

- Well, some of this, I mean.... Of course, I'm always one that wants to share what I know.

I mean, I've always had this sense I wanted to see it all in terms of like a movie that I could just watch at any time.

And I always wanna share that with people because it's a really remarkable thing.

And, you know, one of the things that has led me to also in the last maybe decade or so, is I was very surprised to find out that in our region, particularly New York State Historic Preservation Office, they're basically their data systems, their mapping; they have a whole digital map of where things are in the state.

It was a big blank up here for the most part.

So I've spent a lot of time working with them to update their files so that it's a much more reliable resource for researchers.

And, you know, if a giant project is being done in an area, then they can rely on this map to say, "Well, we have to be careful of this area."

- And all done from a volunteer's position.

- No, this is all done from a volunteer.

- Remarkable.

- Yeah.

- Yes.

- And really I think some of it goes back to, I think, in many ways, I guess, my grandfather, who really was an early inspiration for me.

He was very much different than most of the people of era.

He was very much against burial disturbance.

And that was very much a motto in our family, and we, in our family, I guess it's a sense of that that was very much wrong to disturb human remains.

And some of this comes from wanting to make that right, wanting to see that wrong, kind of fixed as best one can.

Which is, for my case, running around to private collections, museum collections, and working with the nations to go, "Hey, these need to go back; these need to be returned.

- That's wonderful.

Absolutely.

- Nobody wants to see your grandparents dug up.

- No, I don't believe that's true.

So if there are words... Say you're walking down the street, you see a kid with a shovel, what would you say to inspire them to volunteer?

- (chuckles) I would say that you have no idea the history that's right in your own backyard.

It would probably be surprising to you what has gone on in the very ground where you are before you were here.

Because especially in our region there...

I mean, in this little neck of the woods, wherever you're walking, somebody else has been walking there for the last 12 to 13,000 years, you know?

And if you start thinking about that, maybe that'll inspire to think a little bit more about it.

- Absolutely.

That's amazing.

You never think about what's underneath your feet.

- Nope.

- And what a wonderful thing that you're volunteering to share that knowledge and teach people about that.

So just really quickly to wrap this up, where can we find out information about the books that you've written and the appearances where you're going to be?

- Well, I do have a webpage.

It's Kenneth Knapp at Academia.edu.

And You can find some of the papers and stuff I've written on there.

And I've been kind of collaborating and working on a book to publish, a desktop thing to put out there because in all these talks that I do do and as long as some of my colleagues the talks they do, the one question we always get asked is, "Where can I go to find out more?

Where's the book?"

And there really is not a good single source.

So it's very difficult to do it in a scientific comprehensive level, but it can be done maybe on a broader level that a layman could read and understand and relate to.

- And then get inspired to volunteer.

- Get inspired to volunteer- Get inspired, yeah.

- And do more for it.

- Wonderful.

Well, thank you so much, Ken Knapp, for being with us.

Thank you so much for your excellent work.

- Pleasure.

- And we very much look forward to seeing more of your talks and more of the stories that you will unearth.

- Thank you.

(upbeat pop-rock music) - I am here with Dawn Cole, CEO of the United Way of Northern New York.

Dawn, thank you so much for being with us today.

We appreciate you being here.

- Thank you.

- Now tell us a little bit about your background.

I mean, becoming CEO of the United Way is a really big deal.

What was your start in getting to that point?

- Well, thank you for the compliment.

I grew up in generational poverty, grew up in the North Country, one of four children.

My family moved around a lot, largely because we were struggling to pay the rent and get by.

I was the first in my family to go to college.

And I think that really helped to propel kind of my growth, my career.

I didn't go to college until later in life.

I was one of the older students in the classroom many times.

But I made my way out of poverty, and it became important to me to find a mechanism in which I could help other people make that journey because it's no easy trick.

- No, it absolutely isn't.

And then we spoke earlier about Bridges Out of Poverty.

Now, you are a trainer for that program.

Tell us what that volunteer experience is like.

- Well, I was exposed to Bridges Out of Poverty many years ago, probably late 1990s now.

But it was an eye-opening moment for me because it helped me to understand things that had happened along the way that impacted the way I view life, the way I behave, the way I navigate through life.

And then I started to think, "Boy, I could maybe take this material and help other people have similar insights about their lives."

And so a few years later, I became a certified trainer.

I do a lot of Bridges Out of Poverty training in the local community.

And then we took it a step further, and I went into Getting Ahead in a Just Gettin' By World, and I'm a facilitator of that curriculum, as well.

And that's really cool.

We take that Bridge's material and we work with individuals living in generational poverty over the course of 16 to 20 weeks.

And it helps people to kind of self-reflect and look at their own lives and the paths that they've taken.

But then it also helps us to shape our plans for the future.

Right?

- Oh, wow.

That's excellent.

So that has to be really inspiring and exciting for you to have that feeling of helping people like that.

So that feeling that you've generated from those experiences that's helped you go into the community.

Because you have served on quite a few other director boards here.

You've served as part of the Watertown Urban Mission and the Community Action Planning Council.

So all of those ways to give back, this is something that was all inspired by your experiences throughout your childhood.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And the wanting to let others know that you're not alone in your journey.

That there's always someone in your corner.

That's important to me.

I think that's the most valuable thing that I can offer to somebody who's struggling.

And you know what's interesting is a lot of times when we talk or think about poverty, we think of it in terms of financial, but really the amount of money in your wallet isn't the end all, be all.

Poverty's a mindset, right?

And it really robs us of our future story.

We become very faded, hopeless, you know, this is where we're at, and this is where we're gonna stay.

- So your volunteer service has explained to others that there's a way out, there's a way up.

And being the CEO of the United Way, now, that organization is obviously huge in its scope, and here in Northern New York, how many volunteers do you have in the United Way?

- So typically right now we're working with about 150 to 175 volunteers annually.

Volunteers help with things like a food drive.

We do a community-wide food drive, and volunteers are a big part of that.

We have a volunteer board of directors, of course, representative of the Tri-County area.

We also use volunteers.

And I think this is a really cool aspect of United Way that a lot of folks may not realize, but we use volunteers to help determine where best to invest donor dollars into the community.

- Oh, that is interesting.

- Yeah.

Volunteers come together, they evaluate applications, they have a lot of thorough discussion, and they make the determinations as to how we'll use the donations that are made available to us.

- So you've got all kinds of skill sets in your volunteers.

So basically anybody could come with a skill set, and you'll say, "Here, you can help here.

This is what you can help us with."

So, besides the financial aspects of that, are there any... Maybe somebody's just got a few hours a week, where do you think that they would be a good fit to volunteer?

- Well, one of the things that we love to do is... And people call our office quite frequently: "Hey, I'd like to volunteer; I'd like to give back to the community."

We work with a large number of nonprofits throughout the Tri-County area, so if you give us a sense of what you like to do and what your timeframe is, we'll find a match for you.

You know, we find that things like food pantries, some people like to stock shelves, they like to pack boxes, they like to give food to community members.

We find that can be a very rewarding avenue.

Other people like to plan special events.

Other people like to be at special events.

We can find something for anyone that wants to give back to their community in that way.

- And that's wonderful.

And, of course, the United Way and so many other nonprofits in this area, the lifeblood is the volunteer.

And it's been a struggle, I understand, recently, to find volunteers.

What do you think is happening here that we're having a difficult time finding volunteers?

- You know, that's a tough question, and I think we often speculate, was it that prolonged period of isolation that we felt during the pandemic?

Is it some of the political divide?

It's really hard to kind of figure out what's brought us apart, but our motto, and it goes beyond a motto, it's really our model, at United Way, is live united.

So I believe that we can create a community where we can live united when we all kind of come shoulder to shoulder, work to address a problem, make things better, and we do that through volunteerism.

- Fantastic.

That's very good.

Now, what are some words that you would offer just from a person-to-person perspective?

Say you're on the street and somebody was talking about maybe wanting to volunteer.

What would you say to them to inspire them to go do that?

- It can be very rewarding.

You know, if there's a day when you make somebody's life just a little bit better, somebody who perhaps is experiencing that feeling of hopelessness, that's a very good day.

When you can lift somebody up and give them that sense of hope that this isn't as good as it's going to get, there is more out there.

That's a very good day.

There's a lot of great reward to volunteering.

- Now, it feels like you have some personal sentiment behind those words.

Is there a really special memory that you have of volunteering that you use to inspire yourself going forward in all of your work?

- Well, you know, the stories that are, I think...

The examples that mean the most to me are when I see somebody who we've maybe helped in some way move out of poverty give back to the community.

We see graduates of the Getting Ahead program all the time come to events and give their time.

Recently, when we did our food drive, a young man who's a Getting Ahead graduate approached me, and we're in a parking lot of a major store, and he says, "Dawn, I should be inside the store giving out flyers, and it would drive more traffic."

And I thought, "Geez, you know, that's kind of nervy.

No one else is offering to go inside the store and give out flyers."

I said, "Well, let's check with the store staff, make sure it's okay."

And he drove so many donors our way, and we got to have these meaningful conversations with people.

And people are saying, "That young man you have in the store, he's doing an awesome job."

So I love it when we can offer people an opportunity to give back and they have a great experience and it impacts whatever event or initiative is going on.

- And it impacts the community as well.

- Yes.

- It is such a vital source.

And we had talked briefly about how the pandemic had made everybody go into isolation, everybody feels disconnected, and maybe now they're feeling a little unsure as to the best ways that they can go out and volunteer.

So where can they find information about the United Way and all of the opportunities that are there?

- Well, folks are welcome to visit our website, although, to a large degree, I think that plays into our isolation, right?

Don't Zoom me.

- Yes.

- Don't go on the website.

- Right.

- Call us up at the United Way office, pop into our office, and let's talk about what volunteer opportunities are out there.

Let's talk about what's happening in your community.

- Oh, yeah.

- Maybe a community has something happening that they'd like to bring to our attention, and we can help bring volunteers in to address that issue.

- What are some examples of events like that where United Way has brought in volunteers to support it?

- We brought in volunteers to do some outreach in Lewis County recently.

So Lewis County has a relatively large population of individuals who are working, whose wages put them outside of any benefits, right?

But they don't earn quite enough to get by.

We refer to that as the ALICE population: asset-limited, income-constrained, and employed.

And we recently worked with a number of volunteers to do outreach in Lewis County around a fundraiser to help not only generate funds to support that population but even more importantly, to generate awareness.

- Excellent.

So, volunteer work through the United Way can impact the community in so many different ways, just from a food pantry to financial support to building community bonds and making a stronger North Country, right?

- Absolutely.

- That's fantastic.

Well, thank you so much, Dawn.

I very much appreciate it.

And we really appreciate you being here, and we wish you continued success in all your future endeavors.

- Thank you.

(upbeat pop-rock 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 pop-rock music continues) (bright gentle music)