ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 25, 1996 TAG: 9611250005
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: good neighbors fund
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH STAFF WRITER
MORE THAN 100 PEOPLE a day are served at Roanoke Area Ministries, and volunteers are desperately needed.
George Rogers is on a one-man mission to recruit more volunteers to work at Roanoke Area Ministries.
Rogers began working serving free hot lunches in RAM's kitchen in October, after a friend who is the minister of a local Baptist church asked him to help get the congregation more involved in charity work.
Although Rogers already volunteers for the Northwest Child Development Center, he felt he couldn't ask other people to do more than he was doing.
When someone suggested he check out Roanoke Area Ministries, "I wasn't aware of it," he said, "but I knew there was a need."
After touring the 28-year-old charity's day shelter, "I was impressed, " he said. Since he began working every Wednesday, "I look forward to coming. I'm enjoying the experience."
The only problem, he said, is that some days, there aren't enough volunteers to prepare plates and serve food to the more than 100 people who show up every day.
Rogers, who is retired, thinks people his age ought to be doing the volunteering, but many of them "have gotten used to doing nothing," he said. "They don't want to make a sacrifice."
He also is disturbed by the lack of black volunteers. Of the more than 400 people who put in time at RAM each month, only about 10 of them are black, said volunteer coordinator Debbie Green.
"But we need more people, period," Rogers said.
During his career, Rogers has always worked with people. He started out as a waiter on a dining car, and then had a mail route while working for the post office. Since his retirement, he has worked part-time as a restaurant host and a bartender. Currently, he spends several hours a week as a host at Remington's restaurant in the Roanoke Airport Marriott hotel.
In a recent job review, he got a perfect evaluation, and his employers especially praised his ability to make guests feel comfortable.
It's a skill he'd like to use in RAM's dining room, he said, but mealtime is so hectic that he has few opportunities to mingle with the shelter's guests. "I like being around people," he said. "I'd like to find out why they're here."
Rogers has made friends among his fellow volunteers, however.
"It's very encouraging" to see schoolchildren coming in to help," he said.
One day, one of his helpers was a 94-year-old woman who told him: "I can do anything anybody else can do." She served the cake and pie that day.
Rogers also has taken a young high school student under his wing.
"There's a bond between us," he said. "It makes me feel good, too."
So far, he hasn't succeeded in getting any of his friends involved at RAM, but "I'm not going to give up on them" he said.
Checks made payable to the Good Neighbors Fund should be mailed to The Roanoke Times, P.O. Box 1951, Roanoke 24008.
Names - but not donation amounts - of contributing businesses, individuals and organizations, as well as memorial and honorific designations, will be listed in the newspaper. Those requesting that their names not be used will remain anonymous. If no preference is stated, the donor's name will be listed.
LENGTH: Medium: 66 linesby CNB