Jean Robinson has been chosen as Queens County’s volunteer of the year for 2025. (Rick Conrad)

Part of Jean Robinson’s job more than 30 years ago was to choose Queens County’s volunteer of the year.

Now, the Brooklyn resident and consultant has received the award herself.

“I was really surprised and honoured to be selected and I’ve been thinking it’s kind of funny because I came here in the late ’80s as the recreation director for the county and part of my job was helping select the representative volunteers, so it’s a bit of full circle.”

The Region of Queens Municipality announced earlier this summer that it had chosen Robinson as its volunteer of the year for her “remarkable and diverse volunteer resume”.

She has a full-time job as president of Horizons Community Development Associates, Inc., but that hasn’t stopped her from giving much of her free time to non-profits and other groups in the community.

Originally from Beersville, N.B., near Moncton, Robinson moved to the area in 1988 and has made her mark with many organizations, whether that’s volunteering at her kids’ schools when they were younger to the Queens County Girls Choir and Queens County Seafest to her current volunteer gig as chair of the Liverpool International Theatre Festival.

She’s also helped shepherd local community theatre productions at the Astor Theatre and with the Winds of Change Dramatic Society as a producer.

She credits her parents with teaching her the importance of volunteering at a young age.

“I just think that arts and culture have a really important foundational role in community and in a healthy community, so this is my way of being part of that and it ties to my bigger value that volunteering is foundational to communities, to community development and having a healthy place to live, work and play.”

She’s been involved with the theatre festival since 2011 and it was that connection that also garnered her the prestigious King Charles III Coronation Medal in January for services to the arts.

Former Lt.-Gov. Arthur LeBlanc and his wife Patsy are big fans of the festival and he nominated Robinson for the honour.

“And that came as a complete surprise. I opened my email one day back in early January and I thought is this a real email?” she says, laughing.

“It was very special. It was a lovely ceremony. I was able to take two of my three adult children. … It was lovely to see the breadth of volunteers that were being recognized for their work, whether it was in civil society or in government or in Indigenous relations.”

She says volunteering is changing as people’s family lives and priorities shift. Many groups, especially in rural communities like Liverpool, find it challenging to recruit and retain volunteers.

“I think it is still a struggle and I think that the days of folks volunteering for many years with an organization is maybe more of the exception than the rule than it used to be and just the ongoing long-term volunteer is a little more difficult to get now.”

Robinson is bucking that trend by staying with organizations like the theatre festival for the long haul. She says volunteering has helped her form and strengthen long-lasting friendships.

“People volunteer for different reasons and so, understanding that people may want to volunteer for social connections, they may want to do it for building skills which could then even potentially help on a resume.”

She says volunteer-run groups have had to adapt to remove any barriers to bringing new people on board.

“Knowing that there aren’t financial barriers for them to being involved and understanding that as an organization. Thinking about the strengths that volunteering brings to a person in the community but also how can we break down the barriers and support people to be part of the community. How do we open the door and make them feel welcome?”

Robinson will be the Region of Queens delegate to the provincial volunteer awards ceremony on Sept. 29. She’ll be one of 70 from around the province to be honoured with the award.

The Queens volunteer of the year is chosen from nominees for the region’s Ripple Effect volunteer recognition program which allows the public to nominate fellow community members for their volunteer efforts. More information about the Ripple Effect is available here on the Region of Queens website.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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Hank Snow Administrator Vina Moses with Charlotte White. Photo courtesy Friends of Hank Snow Society

A dedicated Liverpool volunteer was honoured in a surprise ceremony Sunday.

Charlotte White thought she was attending the regular annual general meeting of the Hank Snow society.

As she pulled in the driveway of the Hank Snow Museum, it didn’t take long for her to figure out something was up.

“When I drove in the yard and I saw all the cars and I thought oh isn’t this nice, we have so many to turn out ‘cause it was our annual meeting, right?” said White. “Oh, my heavens, and then I saw girl stand in the driveway that worked with me at the food bank and I thought, and then when I went to park, I saw my son’s car and I thought, what is going on here?”

For her longstanding service, the Friends of Hank Snow Society decided to name the room that showcases the famous singer’s outfits in honour of Charlotte White.

Commemorative sign inside museum. Photo courtesy Friends of Hank Snow Society

The ceremony was marked with messages of appreciation for White from MLA Kim Masland and Mayor Darlene Norman.

Administrator at the Hank Snow Museum Vina Moses says the honour is not only deserved but appropriate.

“We thought that would be a nice way to honour her so that when we do tours, we can say this is the Charlotte White room,” said Moses. “Charlotte White is the lady who did a lot for the museum, for the Friends of Hank Snow Society and a lady who loved Hank Snow and loved his music and wanted to make sure that it was remembered.”

Moses says White has been involved since the early days of the Friends of Hank Snow Society and her fingerprints are all over the organization.

While she isn’t as front and centre in day-to-day activities, White continues to be an honorary director.

Moses says when you mention to White you have a need, she puts her experience and connections to work to make it happen.

Moses says the society also wanted to ensure White was recognized for her work establishing the outside canteen, which will now forever bear her name.

“I thought we needed something inside and outside because there may be people who don’t come inside but who are at the outside activities or vice versa, you know. So, her name is in both areas, and I thought it was a deserving recognition that she would have that,” said Moses.

Charlotte White sign on concessions building outside museum. Photo courtesy Friends of Hank Snow Society

Keeping the ceremony a surprise from someone as plugged into the community as White was no easy feat.

Moses says she needed to use White’s own network against her to keep the event under wraps.

By using the phone list White provided, Moses managed to divvy up the guest list into a phone tree for volunteers to reach out to all invitees.

“We knew if we put it out there, numerous, I’m sure hundreds and hundreds of people would have come,” said Moses. “But as I said, we kind of wanted her to know that all those volunteers that she’s called over the years did it because they, you know loved her and loved helping out at Hank Snow and they did it because of Charlotte, I’ll tell you for sure.”

When asked how she felt about having her name emblazoned across the museum White was both excited, and humbled.

“I never got to sleep ‘til about 1:30 this morning ’cause I kept thinking who was that who was that?” said White. “It was wonderful but not necessary, but wonderful.”

E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

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Photo Ed Halverson

The Region of Queens is stepping away from a program that provides people with help to file their income taxes opting to go to a volunteer coordinator.

Mayor Darlene Norman says the municipality has offered staff time to assist with scheduling a program providing people assistance to file their income tax for the past 10 years.

For eight weeks each year, four to six volunteers make themselves available at the Liverpool legion on a weekly basis to help people prepare their income tax.

Norman says a large amount of recreation staff time went into the program answering 2,400 calls in 2021 booking close to 800 appointments.

Because of that investment in resources Norman says the Region looked to the community for a volunteer to take on the coordinator role.

Norman says it didn’t take long for three people to offer their services.

“This is not something that’s the responsibility of municipal government and people recognize that,” said Norman.

She says the new volunteer coordinator will be able to take bookings outside municipal staff hours making the program more flexible for users.

It also shows not every job needs to be taken on by government as there are many people willing to step forward to help their community

“Because they are an at-home person, they’ve had experience with this program before, they understand the workload they’re taking on and they think this would be a great way to give back to people,” said Norman.

Tax preparation clinics will be held by appointment, every Tuesday afternoon from February 22 to April 26, 2022 at the Royal Canadian Legion in Liverpool.

To book an appointment call 902-521-4544.

E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

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Dr. Robert Strang. Photo Nova Scotia Government

The COVID-19 vaccine is now being administered to frontline healthcare workers across Nova Scotia.

The Northern Zone was the final area to establish a vaccination clinic today at the Colchester-East Hants Health Centre.

Public Health is reporting four new COVID-19 cases today. One is close contact of a previously reported case in the Northern Zone. The other three are in the central zone and are related to travel outside Nova Scotia.

The province is also expanding the program to immunize residents of long term care facilities by adding two more homes in Sydney.

The expansion comes as the federal government announced provinces will be getting much less Pfizer vaccine than they had previously been told because of the manufacturer’s plan to revamp one of their production facilities.

Chief medical officer of health for Nova Scotia Dr. Robert Strang says the province was set to receive 13,500 doses this month and is still waiting to hear from Ottawa how much of that we will actually receive.

Strang called it short-term pain for long-term gain.

“And we continue to be told that any reduction we’re getting for February will be added to the supply we can expect in March.”

Strang says their vaccine rollout plan is flexible to allow for increases or decreases in supply.

Since the first vaccines arrived December 15, 8,520 doses have been administered and 2,215 of those have received their second doses to complete their immunization.

Another 5,850 doses arrived in Nova Scotia this week bringing the total number of doses received to 28,850.

The Nova Scotia College of Nursing recently announced retired nurses will receive a conditional license, at no cost, as a measure to increase the number of people available to administer the vaccine injections.

Strang is pleased to see the number of people stepping up to help get the vaccine into Nova Scotians arms.

Based on the number of people who volunteered to assist with pop-up COVID testing clinics, the province is offering people the opportunity to again help out with the upcoming vaccination clinics.

“There was significant buy-in from communities putting their hand up and saying we want to come and help out in some way,” said Strang. “I really think that many Nova Scotians would be more than willing to come forward and say I’m prepared to volunteer my time to help support and run a COVID immunization clinic in my community; knowing, by doing that, they are contributing to their collective safety in that community.

A link to the volunteer page is on our website.

Reported by Ed Halverson 
E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

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