Is it any wonder why people volunteer? It comes from a genuine desire to help. Neither they nor the cause asks for more reward than progress. Still, a little show of appreciation could do wonders, right?
That's what the Marie Interfaith Civic Leadership Award does. One of its newest board members is Jessica DeLoach Sabin, who says this kind of encouragement is itself a big need in the community.
"There are a lot of great causes in the state and a lot of people doing the hard work that needs to be done to help people. Very rarely is that niche sort of work recognized."
Sabin has been an active volunteer for years, going back to childhood, largely upon the example her grandmother set.
An El Dorado native, she graduated with a triple major from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where she served as student body vice president. Now she's a student at the Clinton School of Public Service and spends some of her spare time volunteering with Arkansans for the Arts. A member of the Junior League of Little Rock, she also sits on the boards for the Arkansas Literacy Councils and the Historic Arkansas Museum, the Arkansas Alternative Energy Commission and the Governor's Advisory Council for Gifted Education.
For Sabin, there are two key factors that draw her into a cause. It should be "an issue our state needs to face if we're going to be the best we absolutely can be." And it helps "when I've met someone who's gone through a particular challenge in their life, and you just see how much easier their life could be with a little help."
That passion for volunteering is something she says she shares with her husband of almost three years, state Rep. Warwick Sabin (D-Little Rock). The two met several years ago when she was an intern at the Clinton School, then reconnected later at a fundraiser for the Arkansas Literary Festival.
"We have very similar interests" when it comes to causes and volunteering, she explains. Specifically, literacy and poverty. "We know that Arkansas is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to senior hunger. We know that we've got hungry kids that go to school hungry every day. This whole spectrum of poverty and hunger and all the factors that relate to it keep our state from advancing, and those are things that we care about very much."
On the more personal side, she has a special place in her heart for the arts and one of her undergraduate degrees from UALR is in theater.
"Once you get into it, if you fall in love with it, you never lose that passion. I miss it so much."
Those stage skills have come in handy, though. The ability to speak in front of a group is an obvious benefit. But being present and really listening and engaging with the other person (and not just pretending to) is just as vital to the volunteer work Jessica Sabin takes on as it is to good acting.
One of her more recent projects has been joining the board for the Marie Interfaith Civic Leadership Award, established in 2004 by Paul and Irving Spitzberg to honor their mother, Marie, and her civic service activities. It's intended to recognize people in the community who are working to improve the lives of others, and each year the award focuses on a different contemporary issue.
Last year's 10th anniversary award was given to the Rev. Steve Copley, a lawyer and United Methodist Church minister, director of the Arkansas Interfaith Alliance and chairman of the Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church's Hunger Task Force, who is best known for leading last year's Give Arkansas a Raise Now (minimum wage) ballot initiative. The first award, in 2005, went to Mimi Dortch, then the director of the Arkansas Interfaith Conference (now Interfaith Arkansas).
This year, it's medical-legal partnerships. The partnerships are organizations in which people from the medical and legal communities work together to address health problems with a legal or social basis such as health insurance coverage, housing codes and social welfare benefits.
This year's honorees are Amy Dunn Johnson, one of the founders of Harmony Health Clinic, who also serves on the board for Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care, and Vince Morris, who works on technology solutions to improve access to legal help.
"You can bet that not a lot of people around the state spend their time thinking about medical-legal partnerships," Sabin says. "So, it's an opportunity to draw some attention to people doing hard work that they've clearly dedicated their lives to being able to do. And it's just great."
The award itself isn't particularly high-profile but the board is hoping to change that and to reach out to make young people, in particular, more aware of its existence. They are planning to use social media to increase awareness and to make the award ceremony itself interactive.
"We want young people to know ... if you choose to go into that hard work that may not be very well understood, that there are people in the community who want to recognize what it is that you're doing."
But recognition or no, the important thing is to get involved. If the number of causes feels overwhelming, "you just need to throw yourself out there and try new things. Eventually, you're going to find something that just sticks with you and has a very special place in your heart.
"It's amazing how much you can do for someone just out of passion."
The Marie Interfaith Civic Leadership Award will be at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 19 in the Darragh Center of the Central Arkansas Library System's Main Library, 100 Rock St., Little Rock. Admission is free but reservations are requested at themarie.org. Call (501) 626-9220.
High Profile on 10/11/2015