Editor’s note: A recent survey found that older volunteers on the Island, in 2021 alone, provided a value of $42 million to Island organizations and nonprofits, with 1 million hours worked. That’s impressive. But maybe more important than monetary value, volunteers help build community by spending their weekends, weekdays, and early mornings helping others. We wanted to share their impressive work, and the value each volunteer gets in return.
Leroy Hazelton
The Chicken Alley Thrift Store has been a beloved Island institution for years, and is recognized by many in the community for its positive impact. But the lesser-known aspects of this store are the many volunteers who ensure its success.
Leroy Hazelton, who moved here in 1967 in an old Volkswagen with his wife and a personal collection of more than 15,000 books, is one of those volunteers.
For the past two years, nearly every book you see on the shelves of Chicken Alley was placed there with care by Hazelton himself, who sorts through the donated books in the hours before the store opens. Some Islanders may have caught a smile and wave from him as he exits the store at nine in the morning when they go to shop, while others have no idea there’s someone who puts in that much effort behind the scenes.
“I go in six days a week, early in the morning — usually between 6:15 and 6:30. I will stay approximately two hours, and basically get things ready for the next day,” Hazelton said. “I’m completely passionate about getting books into peoples’ hands, which is one of the reasons I got involved with the Thrift Shop.”
Hazelton’s day-to-day routine may be monotonous to some, but sorting through boxes full of books that someone has deemed unworthy for their home library is not a chore to him, it’s an adventure. “The beauty for me is the chance to see everything — like a book I haven’t heard of before,” Hazelton said. “It’s like Christmas every day sometimes … To see some of my favorite books show up in other peoples’ collections — someone’s on the same track I am; ‘I wonder who this was.’”
When he described the joy he finds in his volunteer work at Chicken Alley Thrift Store, Hazelton recalled something his grandson told him. One winter’s day, years ago, he and his grandson were playing in the snow. It was an especially cold afternoon, and a few hours spent out there had Hazelton struggling to focus on anything but the chill in the air and the need for the warmth of home. His grandson, who is now 11, noticed his grandfather was getting ready to call it a night, and turned to him to say something he’d not soon forget: “‘Don’t think about the cold, think about the happiness,’” he recalled. This reminder has informed Hazelton’s work in many ways.
Hazelton’s description of his volunteer work is focused on the parts that make it great. The things that stay the same are proof of pattern, and the inevitable ups and downs are simply new chapters in the story. Seeing the same book in a donation box time and time again is a nudge to put it higher up on the shelf, or look closer and learn why people hate it so much. There’s always something to do, learn, or be a part of.
“There are always those days when things aren’t working out right, but for the most part, people are all there to do good things,” Hazelton said. “We try to use anything possible to make things good.”
Sarah Sylvia
When Sarah Sylvia witnessed her brother’s struggle with being unhoused in the Midwest, she felt called to help others who were going through the same troubles. She has volunteered for shifts at the local Harbor Homes homeless shelter for the past four years in an effort to bring some healing to the unhoused population here. “People get lost — nobody sees them,” she said. “It’s not just here on the Vineyard, it’s everywhere. And it’s really reached a critical threshold since the pandemic.”
Sylvia is a full-time nurse at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, but makes sure to request one day off a week to help at Harbor Homes, a cause she’s passionate about. She is also currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program, with her thesis focused on the unhoused population on the Island and their current physical and mental health needs.
“They have wonderful stories to tell us … and when they share even a little bit about their life, it’s an opportunity to build trust,” Sylvia said.
When she started volunteering at Harbor Homes, Sylvia didn’t broadcast her profession to any of the people she helped. She understood an emotional reality that has been the undercurrent in her doctorate work: The unhoused population has historically had issues with mental and physical healthcare in this country. “There’s a fear of medical professionals among this population. They have justifiable scenarios for having that fear — not necessarily [on-Island], but in general,” she said.
But after seeing some of the issues that were arising, she knew her skills could help. Now, everyone at Harbor Homes knows she’s a nurse, after she took her time getting to know them outside of the lens of medical care. She assists with health checks, and makes sure those who stay in the shelter have access to first aid kits and basic care.
It may be easier to distance ourselves from those who are going through a rough time, but Sylvia understands that any group of people is only as strong as its willingness to help those in need.
“There’s a voracious cycle of needing, and wanting, and not having — because it’s not available,” Sylvia said. “[But] there are a lot of people who have seen the darkness, and that’s why they’re helping others.”
Ulrike Wartner
For some, retirement is a time to hang up the “work” monocle, and take on hobbies, interests, and engage in radical rest after years of contributing to society. For others, it marks an opportunity to lean into volunteer work instead. Ulrike Wartner is one Islander who has focused on the latter. Wartner moved to the Island full-time nine years ago, after a 35-year career as a child psychologist in Virginia.
“My husband and I have a typical story of being summer people for a few decades … We now live here year-round. One of my wishes for retirement was to spend some of my available time volunteering,” she said.
As of now, Wartner is involved in three organizations. She’s on the ethics board for Hospice at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, she monitors shorebirds in the summer for BioDiversity Works, and she is a “gleaner” (harvester) at Island Grown Initiative.
“I enjoy these things for various reasons,” she said. “They’re very different organizations from each other.”
Her busiest seasons are the summer and fall, when shorebird monitoring is at its peak and the harvest season at IGI is underway.
“I try, whenever it’s available, to glean once or twice a week … I really enjoy it so much,” Wartner said.
She talks about giving back to the community the way most people chat about getting coffee with a friend. The volunteer work she does is not only helpful, it’s also fun for her. She’s found a way to “glean” joy out of the act of serving others. There’s a content feeling in the active part of the work, not just the payoff when she sees the end result.
Wartner described watching the shorebirds nest, lay their eggs, and the anticipation of life that is not guaranteed in the wild. Every few weeks in the summer months, she walks to their home in the sand, both to monitor their progress and hope they make it to the next step. And no matter the result, she goes back to watch again.
“A lot of volunteering is always a bit selfish if it works well — it makes you feel good to do things for other people,” Wartner said of the work she does for the community. “Volunteering is good for the Island and organizations, but it’s also just as good for the people who are doing the volunteering — getting your hands in the dirt, working with Hospice, or getting out to the beach.”
Maddie Scott
For 29-year-old Maddie Scott, volunteering has been a way of life for more than a decade. She was a firefighter on the Island for 10 years, has fostered a total of 29 dogs through Sandy Paws, worked at a call center for Samaritans Crisis Hotline, and has volunteered her time at the Harbor Homes shelter every winter since 2020.
While most people were opting to follow the CDC’s guidelines and staying home during the pandemic, Scott instead felt inspired to help the unhoused population in her community. Now that she’s a caseworker on the Harbor Homes team, her work has evolved to be even more intense. She does intake in addition to care for individuals who are hoping to stay the night at the shelter. “I do paperwork, figure out who they are as a person, and what needs they have,” Scott said.
For someone who needs a place to land for the night, it’s up to Scott and the other volunteers to see what they need and honor it. The question she’s asking at Harbor Homes is: “How can we figure out what’s going on, now that their body is safe?” She described her focus on the hierarchy of needs for people, and said she finds it important to dedicate her time to assist with those who are missing a crucial part: shelter.
Scott relayed many small moments of joy: a completed puzzle with the people at the shelter; a connection with someone who is unhoused, and learning another part of their life story; and the behavioral change in a previously shy or traumatized dog — those are the parts that mean a lot to her.
But they aren’t the parts that keep her involved. The reality of the volunteer work she does is that many times, it’s about not making a bad situation worse, and allowing for a lot of the work to be messy. “I’ve done lots of overnight shifts,” she said. “I sleep with one eye open in case anyone needs anything.”
In terms of her time fostering dogs, that process is about creating a safe space, leaning into good behaviors and curbing bad ones, and then letting them go. Attachment is unavoidable, and Scott said she loves the dogs she fosters every time, but finds solace that “they’re going to a better home than I can give them.”
The volunteer work Scott is involved in is a practice in empathy, selflessness, and cultivating security in spaces where it’s lacking.
“The most rewarding stuff is helping people in need, and making people feel comfortable enough to talk about what’s going on in their lives,” she said.
Jocelyn Coleman Walton
A lot has changed on Martha’s Vineyard since Jocelyn Coleman Walton first visited her grandmother here in 1940, but the community that she fell in love with then has stayed intact. Walton grew up spending summers on the Island, and developed a strong bond with friends, family, and the land. Now, she lives here full-time, and volunteers as one of three chairs for the M.V. Diversity Coalition.
“Our goal is to support Island schools to ensure that every child gets the education they deserve in an environment that allows them to feel safe and valued,” Walton said of the group’s mission.
Islanders may recognize their tagline from signs in Vineyarders’ yards: “Only You and I Can End Racism.” The M.V. Diversity Coalition, also known as MVDC, has worked on multiple projects throughout the years, many of which Walton has been involved in.
One of the ways MVDC is helping children on the Island is through their Readers’ Program, which sends role models who are people of color to elementary schools across the Island to read to students. They’re also putting together a film of oral histories from Black and indigenous people of color (BIPOC) elders on the Island. They’ve worked with young people here to write and release a song, diversified school libraries, and worked closely with the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) to educate young people about indigenous land rights and history. Their goal of deepening the awareness of the community is done through creative avenues: art, music, reading, and youth education.
“We continually seek ways to do the work and have people join us in the work,” Walton said. “We’ve got a good school system here, but it’s important to continue to raise our children with an understanding of the value of our diversity.”
Walton’s efforts to educate people are based both in a love for the Island and the knowledge that it can and will strive to be better. When she was a teenager spending summers here, she felt the tug of the Vineyard. Her grandmother bought a house in 1944, which is now a part of the African American Heritage Trail, and Walton moved here full-time in 2020, nearly 80 years later, after splitting her time on Island for most of her life.
“This place that I love so much grounded me as a teenager, and provided experiences and friendships that I still have to this day. To have a home here … To feel like we knew everything about the Island — like where to get the best penny candy — it was a community for us that I didn’t get in Roxbury.
“It’s a wonderful feeling to feel like you’re giving back to a place where you belong.”
Rich
Over the past decade, Rich has volunteered as an EMT on Martha’s Vineyard. He’s 63 now, just a few years from retirement age, but he said that he has trouble imagining not being a part of the first-responder team (Rich asked that we not use his full name, hoping that the focus for this story not be on him, but shining a light on the work the department does for the Island.)
Rich has seen people at their lowest — in their worst possible moments of grief, shame, and heartbreak. He has also seen their triumph, survival, and love. For him, and many other EMTs, their shared experience of witnessing the extremes in our society has developed into a deep evaluation of the ties that bind humans together.
Rich got involved in emergency services simply because he was asked. When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, he was invited to help with a church group in a Connecticut town he was living in at the time.
“When Katrina happened, it was on such a monumental scale that we just kept going there week after week … It was unbelievable what we saw there … [And] there’s a family that develops — there’s a shared experience from sleeping on school floors and eating [bad] food, and working with people at their absolute worst,” he said.
That time in his life motivated Rich to further his education on emergency first aid. When he moved to the Island full-time in 2014, he entered EMT training the same year. What he found was that there were many people here who needed help too.
Emergency workers are often not only helping people in need, they’re seeing a side of life that is intentionally hidden. The calls that have stuck with him the most have come from the elderly population here.
Rich recalled a few instances when he knew he was witnessing what most people weren’t. The decorated doors of some units told an entirely different story when he would walk inside. “Sometimes, everything they’ve ever owned in their whole life is in their apartment,” he said. Proof of decades of interests, hobbies, and the lack of mobility or time to deal with it.
There’s a palpable tension in those moments between the desire to help someone in need, and the boundaries of professionalism in the context of his job. And after he leaves, he said, “We rarely find out what happens to these people.” EMTs are left with the hope for a better outcome for the people they help, and the knowledge that they may be called there again. It’s an exercise in empathy and contextual restraint that has resonated with Rich for a long time.
“For the people who think a lot — and I probably think too much — [this work] goes into a larger indictment of how us humans take care of each other,” Rich noted.
