Hauber starts Volunteer12 initiative in Elkader
By Willis Patenaude, Times-Register
“More hands make for a lighter load.”
That is the fundamental principle behind Elkader city council member Tony Hauber’s foray into volunteerism—something he believes is a cultural pillar in Elkader. It’s also the idea behind Hauber’s Volunteer12 initiative. Sparked during conversations with local leaders, residents and city administrator Jennifer Cowsert, it is an effort to increase the volunteer base, replace those aging out of it and prevent burn out from current volunteers feeling overworked.
The basic idea behind the Volunteer12 initiative is to find willing and able residents who want to pledge at least 12 hours of community service. The initiative rollout is already underway with the website Volunteer12.com, which was written and designed by Hauber, who also currently maintains it, for the cost of $7 per month.
Phase 1 of the initiative is about creating a database of willing volunteers and connecting them with businesses and organizations that are seeking volunteers. People can go to the site and provide contact information and how they would like to contribute. The database will be available to the city administrator as well as Main Street Elkader. This creates a ready made list of available volunteers entities can call upon when needed.
Hauber’s vision doesn’t end at phase 1. In phase 2, the intent is to expand the site and open it up so opportunities to volunteer can be submitted.
According to Hauber, “This would allow the site to track events and have a calendar of upcoming volunteer opportunities and social media accounts that automatically post and promote these opportunities.”
After that comes phases 3 and 4, which would give volunteers the ability to report their hours so they could be celebrated for their service in an event focused on volunteer appreciation, gifting them something like a free concert and recognizing the volunteer of the year. This incentivizes being a volunteer and engages others.
The initiative, in all four phases, seeks to answer the demand for volunteers the city faces year round. While Hauber stated the community answers the call as much as it can, there is always a need for more help due to the emotional and physical toll volunteering can take.
“People age out of being firefighters or EMTs. We need to always have a focus on engaging new volunteers and helping them find the opportunities they enjoy contributing to. We can take the base of volunteerism and expand it and do even more for this town. Together,” Hauber said.
It isn’t just firefighters and EMTs who bear the burden of volunteering, because volunteers mostly run Main Street and Chamber events. It’s the same for Art in the Park, Sweet Corn Days, the George Maier Building and the Carter House Museum.
For Hauber, part of this initiative is creating a sense of community pride, which he developed as a high school student watching the opera house and movie theatre being repaired and restored by volunteers. This sense of pride showed itself again during the 2008 flood, when community members showed up to fill sandbags, move people from flooding homes and save businesses. It’s this sense of connection Hauber wants to promote.
“Volunteerism provides a lot of value to this town, and reaching younger volunteers will be essential to sustaining and expanding that value,” he said. “This connection to the community has set Elkader apart from any other place I’ve lived, and anything I can do to help facilitate that is a good investment of my time, I believe.”
Volunteer12, which only launched recently, currently has about 17 people signed up. While that might not seem like a lot, it represents 204 hours of community service people are willing to commit. Hauber is confident the service will grow and hopes to have at least 150 people signed up by the end of the year.
Hauber also stated the service has already received several requests to help find people for volunteer opportunities, and he is doing his part to make the initiative a success by reaching out to his campaign list, approaching businesses to get their employees to sign up and promoting the site through Main Street Elkader and other volunteer organizations.
The unique thing about Volunteer12 is how short the bare minimum is, but also how important the hours are to fill a need. According to Hauber, the commitment is small because it is an amount of time most people could easily fit into their schedule by cutting out an hour of TV a month, or by going to the bar for one less hour, or by simply using a weekend and family time to work in the community.
“The reality is that some of us don’t have those hours, and that’s OK. But some of us most certainly do, and that is what community is about, contributing the extra we have to benefit all of us,” Hauber said.
When it comes to Hauber’s own community service, he was reluctant to self promote, instead preferring to shine the light on other examples where volunteerism is excelling, such as with the EMTs and firefighters and all the groups that put on the festivals the community enjoys.
Hauber is using his skills as an entrepreneur and position as a city council member to push an initiative that will benefit the city of Elkader.
“The message I want to send to the community is that we all own Elkader. It belongs to all of us and we can always work to improve the things we own. We can all participate in making it better,” Hauber shared. “Even small things like picking up trash in the alleys, to picking weeds in the flowerbeds at Founder’s Park. To the big things like organizing an event that brings people to town.”
“Nothing gives someone a bigger sense of pride in their community than participating in what makes it great,” he added. “You are part of what makes this community so uniquely special, and I want you to know that your contributions are appreciated.”
