AMBS honors volunteers

Sharon Baker, full-time volunteer at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and coordinator of the seminary’s volunteer program, was honored with a bouquet of roses at the April 17 Volunteer Appreciation event.

Baker came to AMBS in August 2002 and has since organized a volunteer program that contributes to the work in AMBS from office tasks to hospitality to landscaping. Sixty-two individuals assisted the seminary as volunteers in 2006, an increase of 72 percent over 2005. Hours contributed totaled 5,570 or the equivalent of three full-time staff people, a 50 percent increase over the previous year.

Seven of the volunteers in 2006 came through SOOP (Service Opportunities for Older Persons). Six of these individuals came from Canada, including Waldo and Elinor Neufeld who came for their fourth visit to the campus in 2006 and returned again in 2007. One full-time volunteer is Sandra Sinnaeve; as the wife of AMBS student Ryan Siemens from Lethbridge, Alb., she works in exchange for housing on campus. In contrast, some volunteers come only for a day, including Bethany Christian High School students who came for a school-sponsored work day, and women from a local congregation who came as part of their program activities.

Baker coordinates the assignments for the volunteers as well as working at a variety of assignments herself, helping in the library and mailroom, photocopying and groundskeeping. The gift she received at the April 17 event honored her for the five years she has spent at AMBS. She plans to extend her stay at the seminary to 2009.

Photo above: Sharon Baker, full-time volunteer at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, received a bouquet of roses at an April 17 Volunteer Appreciation event. Congratulating her are two other AMBS volunteers: Glenn Schlabaugh from Goshen who volunteers time to paint at AMBS and Elinor Neufeld from Abbotsford, B.C., who with her husband, Waldo, came in 2007 for her fifth visit through SOOP (Service Opportunities for Older Persons).