BELCHERTOWN — Once Mel Donovan began volunteering, Belchertown “opened up.”
In 2021, Donovan took a position on the Belchertown Cultural Council, which meant working with local organizations to fund events and planning two of the biggest town events of the year: Food Truck Fridays and Winter Light Night. Although he already volunteered with at least four other organizations in town, the Cultural Council further connected Donovan to the community.
“It’s expanded my social network a ton,” Donovan said. “I’ve also discovered places and businesses and goings-on in town that I don’t think I would have known about without being in the world of town committees.”
But while Donovan’s network grows, Belchertown’s supply of volunteers seems to remain stagnant.
In the four years Communications Manager Kate Nadeau has volunteered and worked with the town, there have been no fewer than 10 open committee seats at a time. Issues with volunteer recruitment and retention are echoed across town committees. A few dedicated volunteers often wear a number of hats, but often run into burnout or conflicts of interest.
“It’s not a new problem, and it’s not just isolated to one committee,” Nadeau said. “I don’t think there’s any one reason that you might be able to cite why it’s hard to recruit volunteers.”
With nonprofits, volunteer groups and town committees all struggling with the same problem, Belchertown is turning to its own network for the answer. On March 14, the town will host a Community Summit at the Town Hall auditorium to swap ideas, learn about organizations and connect with the community Donovan and Nadeau have come to know so well.
“Volunteering here has started so many friendships,” Historical Commission member Jill Bierly said. “It really just keeps you going when you’re grounded in your friendships and in the town that you live in.”
Lack of volunteers is not limited solely to committee seats, Donovan said. Even the big events like Winter Light Night or the Town Fair rely on dedicated volunteers to set up and run the event, and clean up afterward. The Lake Wallace Sensory Trail needs volunteers to “adopt” sections of the trail, and gardeners to donate their time for upkeep on the McPherson Sensory Garden.
“I feel like almost every committee in town will tell you we could always use more [volunteers],” they said.
Part of the challenge of attracting new volunteers is simply communicating a need for them. There is no guarantee people will see posts on Facebook and Sentinel listings.
“Even if we were doing more outreach and plastering it everywhere,” Nadeau said, “would that solve the problem with people joining committees? There’s no way of knowing that.”
Reaching a younger audience raises its own challenges, not only in communication but also in retention. Nadeau said Communication Committee member Ed Comeau noted young people come with a very different way of thinking than retirees looking for a new activity. If new members clash with the old guard, it can turn off volunteers.
“We have to realize that they’re bringing their own ideas and their own lenses, and they’re looking at things differently than us,” Nadeau said. “We have to be willing to accept not just them and their labor, but their ideas, too.”
When people do agree to join a committee, it’s a toss-up whether the person actually follows through. Nadeau said she was amazed by the number of people who accept a committee seat, only to never get sworn in by the town clerk. After someone accepts a role, the town needs to wait 60 days before reposting the advertisement in the newspaper.
“It creates this backlog of trying to fill it,” Nadeau said.
Oftentimes, involved volunteers pick up multiple committee positions to fill in community needs. However, this small group can find themselves caught between duties. Finance Committee Chair Brian Gibbons initially served on the Capital Planning Committee. A year later, Gibbons accepted a position on the Finance Committee, only to learn a Finance Committee member cannot sit on other committees.
While the realization was disappointing, Gibbons’ 13-year history volunteering with the Zoning Board of Appeals, Capital Planning Committee, Lake Wallace Sensory Trail and the Belchertown School Music Program have been immensely rewarding for him and his family.
“The people that you meet on these committees are all like-minded,” Gibbons said. “We might not all be in line politically or have the same economic status but everybody shares a common interest in that they care about the community and they want the community to move forward.”
Volunteers learn more not only about the people in their community but also about the area itself. Bierly knew little about Belchertown’s history before she moved to town from Pennsylvania. Since joining the Historical Commission in 2015, she discovered a new historical detail about the town nearly every year, like Belchertown’s world-renowned seed library.
“We say the Lake Wallace Trail was born out of an idea that came out of the Historical Commission. The McPherson Sensory Garden was born out of an idea that came from us,” Bierly said. “We’ve spearheaded so many projects and passed them on to different groups that it just keeps it interesting,”
For those interested in learning more about the town and the connections that await, Donovan said the Community Summit is a one-stop shop for interested volunteers. Nadeau said the March 14 event is not a volunteer fair, but a roundtable conversation between organizations and community members on their interests, priorities and opportunities for involvement.
“In my mind, it’s kind of like a launching point for more conversations around volunteering,” Nadeau said.