 Dear Wabash Friends:
Last year 61.8 million Americans (26.4 percent of the adult population) dedicated more than 6 billion hours to volunteer service. Using Independent Sector’s estimated dollar value of a volunteer hour ($20.25), that service was worth an estimated $162 billion.
As I track the volunteer activities of the Wabash community, I notice equally impressive commitment. In 2008-09 Wabash had more than 2,500 alumni and friends contributing time and energy to the education of Wabash students. If we were to calculate the dollar value, and if we assigned two hours to each instance of volunteerism (those individuals volunteered on 4,295 occasions), that would be a gift of nearly $175,000 to the institution. We know that many alumni worked all day on W-Day, and we know that alumni who visit classrooms often spend more than two hours. You get the idea: Wabash volunteers spend valuable time with us. Wabash volunteers are priceless.
Each year I wonder what new examples I can give to underscore the importance of the volunteer work done here. We know that our volunteers stretch the capabilities of this small liberal arts college way beyond its size. If we didn’t have the commitment of each of the volunteers listed here, Wabash certainly couldn’t staff college fairs in all corners of the country, we couldn’t take an English novels class to visit Charles Dickens’ neighborhood in London during Thanksgiving break, and we couldn’t write and test the feasibility of a new strategic plan. We couldn’t do effective leadership training with our residence hall advisors, we couldn’t run the scoreboard at Little Giant basketball games, and we couldn’t lend a nervous senior a business suit for that crucial job interview. We couldn’t run an outstanding Moot Court Program for students interested in the law, our Sphinx Club chapels might be unmemorable, and our welcome to parents of new freshmen would be less warm. In all of these ways – and so many more − alumni and friends, faculty and staff who spend time with our students and their families make a huge difference in their lives.
Thank you to each and every one.
Nancy J. Doemel
Senior Advancement Officer and Coordinator of Volunteer Services
National Association of Wabash Men
The National Association of Wabash Men (NAWM) is the alumni association of Wabash College to which all alumni, as defined by the College, are members. The NAWM Board of Directors is the Association’s governing body whose mission is to help facilitate integration of the College’s alumni, students, administration, parents, faculty, and friends in order to help the Association achieve its goals and ultimately help the College achieve its mission of “educating men to think critically, act responsibly, lead effectively, and live humanely.”
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