Our 2011 Volunteer of the Year

The Creemore Echo’s tradition of picking a “Volunteer of the Year” always presents us with a dilemma. Every year in Creemore there are outstounding acts of volunteerism (for instance, Laurie Copeland’s organizing of two inaugural and wildly successful festivals this year) but on the other hand, this town is chock full of people who have been giving their time generously for years and years and years.

This year, we decided that Laurie has many years of creating festivals (and volunteering at Ray’s Place, and being a great cheerleader for this community) ahead of her, and chose to honour one of the pillars of volunteerism in this town, Norma Friest.

Norma, who just celebrated her 72nd birthday, came to Creemore 47 years ago and joined the Legion right away. Eventually she met her second husband, Glen Ogilvie, who was a member of the Masons and the Shrine Club. Most other people she knew were members of one of these groups or the Lions.

“That’s the way it was back then; everybody volunteered,” she said when we sat down with her at her home two weeks ago. “I have a hard time going from the old system to the new system.”

Basically, what Norma means is that she still lives by the old system. And that sense of volunteerism has led her to be a big part of Nottawasaga Creemore Public School for over 20 years.

She first became involved with the school in 1989, when Clark Miller, who was the music teacher at the time, put a call out to the community to help the NCPS form a band. By that time, funds had dried up at the School Board for such things, so it was up to the village of Creemore to make it happen.

Norma had a daughter at the school at that time, and music has always been an important part of her life, so she signed up to run the fundraising campaign. The main floor storefront of the Masons’ building (into which Seasons in Creemore recently moved) was empty at the time, so Glen arranged the front windows to be the fundraising headquarters. Large drawings of instruments were installed, and every time they raised enough money to pay for one, it was filled in with colour. All kinds of events were held to raise the money, from raffles to dinners at the Legion.

The instruments that are now used by the band at NCPS are still wholly owned by the community of Creemore, and Norma is their loyal guardian. For years she ran silent auctions to replace broken or rundown instruments with new ones, as well as to increase the size of the fleet in general.

Today, it’s one of the last primary school bands in rural Simcoe County, and Norma has vowed to fight tooth and nail if anyone tries to get rid of it.

When the instrument drive was over, Norma took a job for a few years as the playground supervisor at the school. She enjoyed the children so much that she offered to become a volunteer. And not just one day a week or something similar – for the past 20 years, Norma has spent five mornings a week in the classroom, with whatever lucky teacher manages to enlist her services at the start of each year.

To a couple of generations of students, she was and still is known as “Reading Grandma.” Norma loves it when she’s at Foodland or the Creemore Pharmacy and she hears a little voice from down the aisle – “Mom, there’s Reading Grandma!” – and she’s also amazed when she runs into a 30-year-old with their own family, who recognizes her and says, “Hello, Mrs. Friest.” Glen, of course, is happy to be recognized as “Mr. Friest.”

In whatever class she’s in, and with whatever age group, Norma usually sets up shop at a desk in a corner and provides one-on-one help with math and reading for students who are having trouble.

“I simply could not do my job without Norma,” said Kathy Whitley, who’s been lucky to have Norma’s help for the last five years. Four of those were in a Grade 4 class, but this year Kathy and Norma have moved to the junior building to take on the Kindergarten class.

Besides reading and writing help, Norma also spends an hour and a half each morning filling out the students’ agendas, ensuring that their parents are well-informed on what is going on at school.

This work goes toward one of the reasons Norma continues doing this work. “Teachers do not have enough support these days,” she said. “The paperwork is overwhelming.”

Not only does she help with the agendas, she has been known to keep teachers fed from time to time. Nowadays, at the junior site, she jokes that “Glen and Kathy have egg salad sandwiches on Thursdays.” In years previous, when she was at the senior site with Kathy, or for years before with Kevin Weir, or during her stint with John Macham, she would frequently bring in a slow cooker to simmer away in the staff room, with food ready just in time for lunch. There was a time that she would cook a roast on the night that teachers stayed late to meet with parents.

Norma also loves being with the children. When former principal Doug Paul was telling her he wished there was a way to pay his volunteers, she told him, “It’s not the pay I’m after, it’s the chance to be with the kids.”

And that brings us to one of Norma’s pet peeves. “Every class at the school could use someone like me,” she said. “And I hear all kinds of grandmothers around town saying ‘I don’t know what to do with my time.’ Well, just go to the school! They’ll be glad to have you.”

There are other things that Norma does at the school, all of them important to the students’ education. As a liaison from the Legion, she organizes the annual speech competition, a job that came to fruition last year when then Grade 8 student Judah Page made it to the provincial level and finished second there.

She also runs the Remembrance Day art program at the school, from which the drawings on the Legion during the annual service come.

Norma accomplishes this with more health concerns than most have to deal with, though these days she has been wondering if this might be her last year.

Kathy Whitley, however, disagrees. “She’ll be back if I have anything to do with it,” she said. And Norma just grinned.