Staff Profile - April 2015

Highlands Branch's Beverly Mason sincerely cares about people and invests her time in helping them learn and do whatever it takes to succeed in their pursuits.

Since Beverly began managing Highlands Branch volunteers, she has accomplished much. From September 2014, to present, DU has gone from two to eight volunteers and their hours are up from 6.5 hours to 64.5 hours. As her Branch Manager Kristi Dorney says, "That is an increase of 400% in number of volunteers and over 800% in number of hours."  How DID Beverly do that?

Q: What promulgated your interest in managing DU’s volunteers?

A: I began assisting with teen volunteers last summer since I was the teen library associate.  I enjoyed what I was doing so when I returned to the children’s department, I was asked to be the temporary volunteer coordinator while we were having some staff transitions.  I had come to love the teens so I was very interested in giving them an awarding volunteer experience; therefore, I expressed interest in continuing as the coordinator.

Q: Did you have a plan in mind before you took on this extra responsibility of managing DU’s volunteers, and if so, would you share that with us?

A: Originally, I was hoping to start a Teen Advisory Board at Highlands.  This is what led me to work with teen volunteers during the summer.  As I began to show interest in this, Rebekah Mitchell suggested that I speak to Greg Pierce, who was at that time volunteer coordinator at West.  Greg was kind enough to spend about an hour with me one morning reviewing the required paperwork and his methods for a successful summer volunteer program as well as during the year.  He encouraged me to start small.

When I took over the coordinator role, I asked Greg Pierce, Kimberly Keen, Kimberly Kirkland, and others lots of questions.  Each person was very patient with me as I learned the process.

At that time, all previous volunteers had stopped coming.  I began to receive new applications and I dove into the files and began contacting teens who had previously expressed an interest in volunteering but had chosen not to continue during the summer.  When I learned that we were losing some part-time hours, I began to take on more volunteers.  I now have a waiting list of teens who want to volunteer here. 

Q: What would you say was the key ingredient in your overall success with the volunteers?

A: Patience and Flexibility – Most of our volunteers are teens.  They have many things going on in life--homework, athletics, family vacations, etc. that sometimes interfere with their volunteer schedules.  Most of them are very good about contacting us and keeping us informed when there is a conflict. 

Q: What are some of the successes you have seen DU’s volunteers accomplish during this short period of time—September to present?

A: One of our teen volunteers became part of Highland's Teen Advisory Board.  This past  month, we were able to clean up our children’s department with the help of one of our volunteers who weeded nonfiction, shelf read, shelved, and straightened shelves on a daily basis.  He also helped us find some of our books on the shelves that were on our missing list.  It is great to see teens finish up their volunteer hours, which they need to graduate.

Through one of our volunteers, we were able to plan a Fire Safety program for one of our upcoming storytimes. One of our volunteers is very active in soccer and hopes to earn a scholarship based on athletics.

Q: What’s the biggest challenge you have faced in life?

A: I would like to mention two big challenges in my life.  The first was trying to find a job during my Mom’s sickness/death.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had been blessed with a period of unemployment so that I could focus on my family.  Shortly after my Mom's death, I became employed with JPL. 

The second biggest challenge was working with children in Romania on a church missions trip.  I didn’t know the Romanian language and they didn’t know English.  We quickly learned that they enjoyed playing outside games, blowing bubbles, and having their pictures taken.  So we focused on playing games with them, and when class time came, we had to use an interpreter.  It is challenging to slow your pace and pause while teaching so that an interpreter can repeat what you just said.    

Beverly is pictured above with a fish she caught on a trip to New Hampshire. Fishing is one of her favorite hobbies, as well as bowling, watching movies, and teaching children at church.