“Well, I think that my desire to serve or my innate makeup to serve started as a kid when I grew up in a farming community where farmers always helped farmers, neighbors always helped neighbors,” states Laura Voth.
After working for kids at Allen County Children Services Board and then senior citizens at Mennonite Home Communities in Bluffton for 37 years, Laura Voth decided she need to find another purpose in life and in her small way, try and make the world a better place.
“One of my retirement bucket list items was to come back to Lima to serve at a social service agency in some way volunteering. I didn’t know how or what,” says Voth. “But then I heard about United Way’s goal to do more with less. They were hoping that they could do more administrative work through volunteers which would allow them to put more money into their partner agencies or their local communities, social service agencies. So, I thought would be a perfect fit for me.”
For the past two years, Voth has been volunteering three days a week at the United Way.
“The United Way had decided quite a while ago that we needed to get our operating budget under control,” says Erin Hardesty who nominated Voth. “And so, what we thought we would do is farm out some of this work to see if volunteers wouldn’t help us. As soon as Laura heard that she immediately came in and said I want to help. She started working 24 to 30 hours a week volunteering. She actually became part of the team.”
“The vision of United Way is compelling to me because it does serve many people through the partner agencies in many ways,” adds Voth. “There is no way that one person or one agency can provide for all the social service needs in Lima. But through the United Way, we can communicate through donors than to funnel funds to those social service agencies.”
Voth and the other Jefferson Award Winner will be recognized during a banquet on April 19th. One of the winners will be picked to represent this area at the national Jefferson Awards.
