Shining Stars: Administrative Action Award
Donna Robertson
Community Support Connections – Meals on Wheels and More
Donna Robertson almost ignored the e-mail telling her she’d won a volunteer impact award.
“I’m one of these cautious seniors who’s very wary of names that I’m not familiar with,” she said. “I thought, ‘no I better not open this’. Then I looked at the subject line and thought ‘maybe I should open this’ and lo and behold it was telling me that I won this award and I couldn’t really believe it.”
The Volunteer Action Centre are recognizing Robertson for her work with Community Support Connections and Meals on Wheels and More, which spans over two decades. In 1990, shortly before her retirement, Robertson joined the board of directors for the K-W Friendship Group for Seniors, which would later amalgamate with other groups to form Community Support Connections and Meals on Wheels and More.
Shortly after retiring, Robertson began looking for volunteer work, and didn’t have to look far, joining the volunteer team for the K-W Friendship group for Seniors, initially doing clerical work. She then took on the responsibility of calling seniors who were on the waiting list for a volunteer from the organization’s “friendly visitor” program.
“These are people who in most cases are living alone. They’re lonely and a lot of them were quite elderly,” said Robertson. “I had one woman that I started out with when she was about 98 years old and she died when she was 106. She was truly amazing.
“We kept contact as long as we were able. She was just a wonderful lady, I loved her to pieces.”
When the K-W Friendship Group for Seniors was merging to form the new organization, Robertson was unsure if she would stay. However, she decided to stick around, a decision she’s very glad she made.
“Everybody is so nice here,” she said. “I never leave without people saying ‘thank you’ and that means a lot. I’ve done some other volunteer work where they didn’t really appreciate what the volunteers did but this is just a wonderful place to volunteer.
