- November 26, 2024
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When she first moved to Palm Coast, Jan Sutton attended a meeting at the Emergency Operations Center. After the meeting ended, she flagged down Sherry Calderaro and MaryAnn Kirby, who were wearing Flagler Volunteer Services shirts. She wanted to know of good places to volunteer.
The two immediately told her about Flagler Volunteer Services and the Giving Store.
That was back in 2007, and now Sutton is a regular at the office and a vital part of the Giving Store and semiannual rummage sales volunteer staff. She is also fully involved with the I Can Read program, volunteers with the newly evolved Reading Pals program, works with Access Flagler, and helps out with many other programs.
“We grabbed her and she has been a right hand man ever since,” Calderaro said. “She’s been an incredible addition to our volunteer program. As far as the Giving Store and rummage sales go, I honestly don’t know how we ever managed without her.”
For Sutton, who worked as a paraprofessional until retirement, volunteering is second nature.
Her cousin’s wife, Janice Ludemann, who is really more like a sister, recalled Sutton being a volunteer for as long as she can remember. Whether it was leading her daughter’s girl scout troop or the youth fellowship, Sutton was giving her time to others. She even took her school vacations to travel with Habitat for Humanity.
“She is so serious about her volunteering that even in retirement, she still doesn’t take time off,” Ludemann said.
In Flagler County, Sutton has thrown herself into a variety of programs, but the one that is expected to have the biggest impact in the upcoming year, and is very near to Sutton’s heart, is ReadingPals, which launched this August and works to improve literacy at the Early Learning Center at the Bunnell and Indian Trails preschool program.
“The children are the basis of the community’s future. I think you need to take stock in them,” she said as she sat at a picnic table after helping set up the Giving Store. “If you don’t care about the children, what will you have when they are adults?”
There was one little boy who is permanently in Sutton’s memory from working with the I Can Read program. In one of her first years with the program, she came across a boy who did not know the alphabet.
“We were basically starting from square one with him,” she said.
Sutton worked in conjunction with the teacher and, by the end of the year, he was reading and ready to go to first grade. Although Sutton said that 90% of that effort came from the classroom teacher, being part of the progression is something that will stick with her always. It is her hope that, although the ReadingPals program is still working through some bumps, the one-on-one time spent with the early learning students will result in similar success stories.
“(Volunteering) doesn’t allow you to be self-involved,” Sutton said. “It makes me feel like a better person. It extends your boundaries beyond your own concerns when you do something for others.”
Sutton said that working with Flagler Volunteer Services is one of the best things she has ever done. Not only has it brought her back in the classroom, but knowing only one person in town when she moved to Palm Coast, she has also made friends and gotten involved in the community.
“I encourage new people in the community to register and take advantage of the opportunity,” she said. “I don’t think anybody has ever regretted volunteering.”
Email Shanna Fortier at [email protected].
