Fayetteville was named a 2011 Volunteer Community of the Year for the third consecutive time during an awards luncheon hosted by the Arkansas Municipal League last week.
On hand to accept the award was Mayor Lioneld Jordan and Ward 1 Alderwoman Adella Gray.
“Fayetteville has a strong community spirit and has long been praised for one its greatest strengths, her people,” said Jordan. “In good times and trying times, Fayetteville citizens consider others, and even in trying times, there continues a great solidarity of spirit. The people of Fayetteville demonstrate their caring spirit every day, and this honor for Fayetteville is a tribute to their commitment to community.”
In the past year, volunteer coordinator Julie McQuade said approximately 30,000 volunteers have dedicated more than 600,000 hours to the benefit of the community and the quality of life for Fayetteville residents.
She compiles the totals by reaching out to community groups throughout the city.
“I start a couple months before, contact all the organizations that use volunteers and ask them to send me their hours for the past 12 months,” she said. “Then I take all that information, and compile it into three pages for the state.”
McQuade said volunteers dedicated nearly 90,000 hours to the beauty and health of the environment through cleanups, educational programming, gardening, and advocacy for clean water and clean energy. Arts and culture in Fayetteville benefited from more than 70,000 volunteer hours this past year. Increasing diversity, inclusion, justice, and education were the focus of more than 200,000 hours, and volunteers dedicated over 150,000 hours to improve the health and wellness of our community members of all ages. Volunteers dedicated over 120,000 hours to our youth through sports and recreation, education and literacy, and providing them safe places and activities.
Fayetteville has been recognized as a volunteer community six times since 1982.
