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FAIRFIELD – Jerry Leonard was recognized as the 2024 Volunteer of the Year by the Fairfield Beautification Commission.

Members of the Beautification Commission presented Leonard with the framed certificate in January since he could not be present for the awards ceremony held on Dec. 13. Beautification Commission chair Deborah Williamson said Leonard was honored for his “outstanding dedication and unwavering commitment to the beautification of Fairfield.”

“Jerry's passion for service and deep love for our community are evident in every flower planted and every project brought to life through his hands-on leadership,” Williamson said. “Whether organizing clean-up crews, watering plants or landscaping Habitat for Humanity homes, Jerry approaches each task with humility, integrity, and a smile.”

Williamson said Leonard’s “countless hours” of volunteer work have done more than just transform the physical landscape of Fairfield, inspiring others to take pride “in the place we call home.”

“Jerry exemplifies the spirit of community, and his efforts have left a lasting legacy that will bloom for years to come,” she said.

Leonard said he got connected to the Beautification Commission through Williamson, who knew that he was involved in Greater Fairfield Area Habitat for Humanity. Leonard has been Habitat’s construction manager since the fall of 2022. Habitat and the Beautification Commission are two organizations that need volunteers to accomplish their goals, and they’ve worked together on joint projects. For instance, the commission has worked on landscaping projects at the new Habitat homes on North 12th Street.

One of the reasons Leonard is passionate about volunteering with the commission is that he knows about the need for volunteers both locally and nationally. For the last few years, Habitat has switched to ordering prefabricated homes from Iowa Prison Industries instead of constructing them on site, partly because it was hard to find enough volunteers to finish them in a timely manner. Leonard also noted that only 34 percent of Americans volunteer at all, and he wants to do whatever he can to push that number up.

Leonard said that going with prefabricated homes has tremendously reduced the amount of work volunteers and Habitat board members need to contribute toward finishing the house, since the only parts that are left undone are the flooring, decks and skirt outside the home, plus the plumbing and electric connections the contractors perform. Homeowners must still contribute 200 hours in “sweat equity,” which they can discharge by working on the home or by working at Fairfield ReStore.

Leonard is from the small town of Ryan in Delaware County in northeast Iowa. He attended West Delaware High School, and assumed that he’d farm his whole life. But the farm crisis of the early 1980s, where rents were sky high and commodity prices were rock bottom, shattered that dream. His father, being a child of the Great Depression, had a vision for how to survive the crisis by starting a business to do “prescription farming,” what is today known as “precision farming,” that involved testing soil for nutrient content.

Leonard worked jobs off the farm, too, such as working for a bridge-building company in the neighboring town of Manchester. He got a job with the Iowa Department of Transportation, and learned that its major infrastructure project was going to be building the Avenue of the Saints through eastern Iowa, connecting St. Paul, Minnesota to St. Louis, Missouri.

Leonard moved to Fairfield in 1998 to begin work on the highway in Southeast Iowa. He remembers there was a big push to finish the highway on schedule, which meant working through inclement weather.

“At the time, they were paving outside Washington, and I was like, ‘OK, you know it’s snowing, right?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, we know. Just get out there,’” Leonard recalled. “They wanted that part of the road open as soon as possible.”

Leonard was a construction inspector for the DOT until October 2024. Near the end of his tenure, he began looking for jobs with a bit less stress, and came across a newspaper advertisement from Greater Fairfield Area Habitat for Humanity needing a construction manager. Habitat had decided to elevate that position from volunteer to paid because of the work it entailed.

“It’s not just showing up on Saturday and jumping in with the volunteers,” Leonard said, explaining that the job entails not just the hands-on work but also coordinating with all the contractors.

“I really dove into it hard,” he said. “I’ve worked a lot of hours, but it’s also brought me a lot of enjoyment.”