Fairfield revamps once defunct volunteer center

FAIRFIELD — The city of Fairfield is revamping the previously defunct Fairfield Volunteer Center.

Fairfield Mayor Connie Boyer has led the charge to resurrect the organization into a viable entity with its own board of directors, phone line and presence at the Fairfield Public Library’s resource desk.

Boyer has appointed five residents to serve as the center’s board of directors: Shanaz Kreider, Jan Larson, Cole Fishback, Tony Webb and Jeff Wilson.

A member of the board or a volunteer will staff the resource desk at the library on Thursdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to noon, beginning the middle of August. Residents can call the volunteer center at 641-209-9044, though Boyer said the phone line won’t be connected for a few more weeks.

The purpose of the volunteer center is to “bring volunteers to projects and projects to volunteers,” Boyer said. She said there are so many things volunteers can do to improve the town, it’s just a matter of matching a volunteer’s interest with a project they will be passionate about. For instance, Boyer said there are opportunities to volunteer on keeping up the Fairfield Loop Trail, tending to the garden nodes downtown, picking up trash and weeding the sand at the beach at Waterworks Park, and on and on. Boyer said even more opportunities are on the horizon, like the prospect of creating a vegetable garden whose produce would go to The Lord’s Cupboard food pantry.

Boyer hopes this new iteration of the Fairfield Volunteer Center will be sustainable. The previous volunteer center began as a Fairfield city commission in 2006 and had an executive director, program assistant and five-member board. Boyer said the group ran into problems finding grants to pay its director and eventually dissolved.

Its website, which still is up, appears to be last updated in 2012. Boyer said the city is trying to replace that old website with a new one reflecting the new board members.