We're Hiring!

Noble Levesque Volunteer Appreciation Gathering and Celebration

5/1/2024

Olavi Wirkki Receiving his award as Volunteer of the Year

Noble Levesque was a long time, dedicated volunteer with Bennington County Habitat. Like many of our volunteers, he joined us throughout his retirement after a successful career. This is one of the many reasons we honor him still today. Not only was he an exemplary volunteer, but in many ways he represents our volunteers still. When Noble passed in 2012, a fund was created in his name to honor the other volunteers in our organization who embody Noble’s selfless spirit. While originally planned to be an award for a single volunteer, the first ever recipient of the award, Barth Vander Els, chose to instead honor all of the Bennington County Habitat volunteers, an idea we still wish to carry on today, by gathering together and honoring all of our volunteers over the past year.

This year’s event was a huge success, with many past, present, and even future volunteers in attendance. There were even people who came to the event, who have volunteered for the first time since then!

We presented a number of awards during this event. Some were hard earned, legitimate recognitions. Other awards were more for fun, to keep it light. 

Most Volunteer Hours – Bill Baldwin

Most Volunteer Shifts/Days – Curt Merrow

The Bent Nail Award – Dave Brown

The Rusty Tape Measure Award – Jim Dickson

The Early Bird Award – Jim Goodine

The Ice Pack Award – Diane Niles

The Shortest Shift – Todd Clark

The Most Weight Lifted – Bill Bellando and Ray Ferrarin

The Volunteer of the Year – Olavi Wirkki

A packed house for this celebration, with roughly 75 volunteers in attendance!

Thank you to all of our volunteers, those who made it to this event, and those who didn’t. The work we do here at Habitat would be literally impossible if it weren’t for our volunteers. Without volunteers on the construction site, we would be building half the number of houses we do (if any) and without the volunteers staffing our ReStore, we would not have such a powerful public presence in the community. With all these volunteers we continue to grow, and impact more lives, right here in Bennington County. 

Thank you to the Inn at Manchester for donating the use of their space for this event, and to Equinox Valley Nursery for lending us the flowers to brighten up the room! We are extremely grateful.

If you are interested in joining us as a volunteer, please click here for more information.

Join The List

Sign up to receive monthly newsletters and updates from Bennington County Habitat for Humanity