- Hi neighbors.

Welcome to Look for the Helpers, portraits, and Community Service.

I'm Cynthia Tyler.

In every community there are those who step up to lend a helping hand, giving their time and putting in the energy to make life better for those around them.

They don't do it for recognition, but because they care.

And it's what keeps our communities growing strong.

Tonight we sit down with two of our neighbors making a difference in the place we call home.

Tom Le Clare's, passion for hard work and history led to his service as the town of Clayton's historian and as president of their rotary chapter, Nancy Hart drew inspiration from a lifetime of family love to begin volunteering to help the elderly in her community.

Please join me as we celebrate our local volunteers.

I have Tom LeClaire of Clayton, New York with us right now, and Tom is fantastic because Tom, you are the head, you are part of four organizations for volunteering.

- I am.

- Let's start at the top.

Let's go.

You know, - Some, some days I don't know how I became active in four.

Some people say that I have a hard time saying no.

- Well then let's start at the very beginning.

How did volunteering come into your life?

- Well, you know, I I, I was thinking about this morning knowing that this interview was coming and when I really felt that I got involved in volunteering where I see, I saw it make a difference.

I grew up on a dairy farm and that's where I, I learned work ethic.

And even though it may not have been people, you know, it's taking care of the animals, doing things.

It's hard work.

Yeah.

Doing, doing things that better the environment, the community.

But I left the farm when I was about 20 years old and eventually I joined the United States Air Force, traveling the world over.

Wonderful.

My first duty assignment was in Okinawa, Japan.

And, and I don't even know how it all came about, but I had the opportunity to assist at a local orphanage.

Oh.

And it was, it was nothing significant, significant at the moment, but it was adopt a orphan.

And when they say adopt, it means represent, take that person a gift, take that person some clothing.

But I, I, I was sincere that I loved what I was doing.

And before long I was president of the organization that handled the orphanage, the liaison between the military base and, you know, wow.

The orphanage.

And we, we picked different children.

And one, one of my job was to make sure that every child had a representative on the base.

And that really wasn't hard to fill, but it was volunteering in the spotlight.

'cause I got interviewed there from the base to say, what are you doing in the community?

And, and it's bringing goodness to the, the military - Installation and that, and that sparked everything.

And then when you came out of the Air Force, you decided Yeah.

You already knew - Yeah.

- What you were gonna do.

- Well, I did, but I'm gonna back you up a little bit.

Okay.

Because there was more than one event at Okinawa.

Oh.

Another event that I had that I I cherished to this day is I volunteered with the local Okinawa people to go cut sugar cane in the fields.

- Wow.

- And that was hard work.

Imagine.

It really was.

I can imagine.

I mean, you had to use the Sharp tools.

Well, you - Were on the farm, so you would, you knew how to - Back to Well, well, I, I thought I did.

I thought I did.

But it was honestly hard work.

I did not complain about the hard work.

But what I wanna bring out in this message, there was something that happened that day that talked about volunteering that meant something to me.

We were all working hard.

There was a few Americans out there, military, but there was a lot of, of the Yo Cano.

Well, when lunchtime came, we didn't know what we were gonna have for lunch.

But next thing I'm know, I'm looking at fish, I'm looking at rice, I got sake, and there's a head on my fish.

And I says, I'm, I'm real here.

This, we're not playing.

Oh, all right.

But it was a, it was an opportunity where I felt like I was connecting with the Okinawa people.

I would've never been able to connect with someone had I not been volunteering.

The message I wanna share was, is when you volunteer, you find yourself learning and growing and doing things that you would never do if you hadn't volunteered.

And that one moment, I think really did change my life when it came to volunteering.

- Wow.

- Now, that was early in my military career.

So I ended up serving 28 years.

I volunteered many organizations within the military, within the church along the way.

But I always knew that when retirement came, I was gonna go back to my hometown in Clayton, New York.

And I was gonna volunteer.

I never knew what I was gonna do.

I just knew I was going to volunteer in the community somehow, some way.

- Okay.

- And right after I retired, soon after, some people that I had just recently met asked me if I knew about Clayton Rotary, which truth is, I did not know what Rotary was at that time, but I said, it sounds like what you Well, they told me what they do, and I says, that sounds exactly what I wanna do.

- It's a great gateway, a wonderful organization.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

So I joined Rotary, and that was 14 years ago.

And now I'm a past president, I'm a past treasurer.

I'm the membership - Chair wor all of the hats.

Yeah.

- Rotary's doing a wonderful work.

And Rotary's not the only organization.

I don't wanna say that they are, but Rotary does do a lot of good works in the community, and I'm proud to be part of it.

- Wonderful.

So that is, is that the first of the four that we're talking about - Today?

No.

If, if I want to list the four organizations, and I'm proud of the four organizations that I'm very active in, I'm gonna tell you that my number one passion in life is family research.

Genealogy.

Genealogy.

All right.

One of my brothers said that he knows that I'm looking forward to the day I die 'cause I can meet my ancestors because I talk about my ancestors more than I do my siblings.

- Well, no, that's fascinating because we've, we've, and the show, we've touched in so many different organizations and different ways from medical to, to pets to, to community, to military.

This is the first time that volunteer service Yeah.

Is about history.

Yeah.

That's so exciting.

So, so what about the genealogy department?

Like, or the genealogy group?

- No, so, so I've been involved in genealogy off and on for 30 plus years.

But I, you know, being involved in genealogy, again, you are learning history, you're learning history of the people, how they used to live.

You know, many of my ancestors were farmers.

Now I was a farmer, but compared to what my ancestors did and how they did it Mm.

Totally different of course.

Right.

But I remember soon after retirement, I went out to Watertown where there is the Jefferson County Genealogical Society.

And, and I enjoyed what I was hearing.

It's, it's a regular group of people that are just saying how we can help one another to, you know, how do you find death certificates?

How do you go about learning about the, the cemetery and where the headstones might be found?

Who are the clerks that you need to be talking to?

And and through the years, I've become a little bit smarter, a little bit wiser.

And I've been the president of the organization on and off and I am the current president today.

- And you have had some amazing accomplishments with this organization.

I know that you, you had a historical marker added to the town of Clayton.

Is that correct?

- That is, we have in Clayton a civil war soldier who risked his life to help save some of his fellow soldiers.

And there is a Pomeroy marker for Joseph Longs Way in Clayton.

I helped put, get that one in.

I, I did serve as the Clayton historian For six years.

Oddly enough, it was my genealogy passion.

I kept going to the Thousand Island Museum in Clayton to do research.

They would see me in there often.

And when the time came that they needed a historian, sadly the previous one had passed away when I came along and someone said, are you interested in being the historian?

And I remember the exact thing, thing that I said is, I said, I will think about it.

And the mayor said, you're hired because nobody else would even think about it.

So I have to be careful with what words I - Say that that is very true with any sort of of social government.

Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- So you have, you've got these amazing accomplishments under the genealogy.

Now what are, where do they find out inform?

Can anybody volunteer if they have a passion for it, or Absolutely.

Tell us, tell us how they can help - Out.

Alright, so the, the Jefferson County, New York Geological Society, we have about 20, 25, 30 members that come every month when we have our, our gathering.

But a lot of people don't realize that we have over 300 members.

'cause we have people all over the United States, some in the Canada Wow.

Who are researching their ancestors from Jefferson County.

So they join the organization because we put out a a 24 page newsletter that talks about different individual burial list marriage list.

- And this is all volunteer - Work.

This is all volunteer.

Wow.

All volunteer people will go to, you know, members will go to different organizations, say the Flower Memorial Library, you find something, you type it up.

It's now an article in the newsletter.

- Wow.

- There is, I've been a member for, again, 13, 14 years, never have received a penny.

I don't know of anyone that has ever received a - Penny.

Just out of pure passion for the Absolutely.

The excitement and joy that you get for that.

Absolutely.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

So those are two of those organizations.

What's our third?

- Well, alright, well so you, we talked about the genealogy, I talked about the historian.

The second one that I, and again, it's a off a jump from the genealogy.

I'm a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, - Which is very exciting - Now because it is exciting because we got the 250th anniversary That's - Right.

Coming up later this year.

Coming up.

Yes.

- And, and I'm very active and I'm on a committee right now to help identify as many of the soldiers that fought in the revolution but are buried in Jefferson County here in - Jefferson County.

- And, and, and we say Jefferson County because if we said for the revolution, the list will be huge.

- Sure.

- But we wanna focus on Jefferson County.

- Right.

- And we're sitting at right now of just shy of 500 soldiers that fought in the revolution and then came to Jefferson County after the war.

Wow.

The Jefferson County wasn't, didn't even exist.

- Exist - Exactly.

During the war.

- That's amazing.

- But a lot of the lands opened up.

So a lot of the soldiers after the war did come into Jefferson County.

- Now that's exciting because we are always so known for the war of 1812.

Yes.

Which is basically the community's, you know, total thing.

But to know that we have an even deeper connection to our nation's history like that.

Right.

That must've been so exciting to find - Out.

Well, it and absolutely is.

And, and and so many, you know, a lot of people know the revolutionary soldiers, but primarily people that are in the history in genealogy circles.

- Right, right.

- But what we really do hope to do is to expand.

And I know that you and PBS are looking to help expand that knowledge.

So thank you.

We're we're absolutely doing our best.

- Yeah.

So, okay, so that is, - Yeah, - The rotary, you had the genealogy, you have the suns, you have the sons of the revolution.

- Alright.

- My goodness.

- So, so it would go without saying someone who served 28 years in the military, it stands to reason that when you retire from the military, you join your local Legion Post.

Now my father years ago, Henry Lele was the commander of Clark Smith American Legion Post 1788 in Lafarge.

I have an uncle that was a past commander, first cousin, past commander.

So I am an active member of the, the Post.

And one of my jobs is historian.

So I've done some research on the post, the early individuals clock and Smith.

And so there's some information hanging on the walls in the, in the post that give the history of how those two individuals sacrificed their lives.

Not intentionally, but by joining the military, you never know what may happen.

- That's right.

That's part of, part of the - Job.

But I, I participate in funerals.

We participate in ceremonial flag burnings when the flag is needs to be retired.

Yeah.

Respectfully.

We have the Memorial Day parades.

So I'm, I'm quite involved.

- You're still boots on the ground.

I - Still absolutely.

- Oh my goodness.

You - Know, military, we're, we're a band of brothers and sisters and we stay together.

- That's amazing.

Yeah.

So now Tom, what would you say in your own words to somebody to inspire them to volunteer?

- Ah, absolutely.

Again, the, the experiences of volunteering.

You're not only giving of yourself, but you're learning, you're growing And, and like I talked about earlier, the experiences that you would otherwise not ever happen.

So get involved, share of yourself.

There is the old ad adage takes a village, alright.

Just like volunteering.

If we look at communities, you used to have fireman field days and, and parades and, and a lot of these things are slowly fading away.

And I might not even say slowly, they're rapidly feeling falling away.

- Yeah.

- I, I would love to see every member of the community have at least one organization that they've volunteered.

And it's so we as a village, we as a community can share in the joys of these events.

I know as a child, I look forward to firemen field days and though there are still a few that remain, most of 'em have gone.

And I, and I could go on with a number of things Of course.

And I, and I, everyone that's listening to this show today will know exactly what I'm talking about.

- Exactly.

- Exactly.

We grew up with so much.

So get involved in the community, make some event, come out to Shine.

And again, you, Cindy, are personally involved.

I know with the comic convention, the Oh, we're not supposed to talk about.

Yeah.

We're not supposed to talk about you.

But you are a volunteer and I appreciate it.

- Well thank you so, so much Tom.

We appreciate you being with us on the show.

We wish you so much luck in your future endeavors.

Thank you.

Alright, thank you.

I am here with one of our very, very favorite volunteers here at WPBS, Nancy Hart from Send Lake Ontario.

Thank you so much for being with us here today, Nancy.

We really appreciate it.

- Thank you for having me.

- So now we were talking earlier and you were saying that your volunteer service really didn't start until you retired.

Was it just something that you decided you wanted to fill the time?

Was it something that you just felt like you wanted to give back?

What inspired you to start volunteering?

- Two things, really.

I wanted, I wanted a tangible way to be able to say thank you to the station that meant so much to me.

To us.

And at that point I happened to be watching WPBS and they were doing fundraising, fundraising pledge and we're asking, telling people that there were opportunities.

If you'd come down here you could volunteer things to do at the station.

In the station.

And I thought, whoa, I would like to do that.

My favorite station, anything.

I would love to be able to help in some tiny way.

- Fantastic.

Now has volunteering always been in the back of your mind?

Did you, were you raised in a household where you were surrounded by volunteers or a, a volunteering community?

- My folks both volunteered at church.

Dad was a treasurer.

My mom taught Sunday school and then later on she led women's groups and discussions and things like that.

So it just kind of, it was natural and I don't know that I consciously thought of it.

It was just there in the back of my head and then came this opportunity to come here and, hallelujah.

Do you have a favorite - Memory from working here - At PBS?

It really, any time that we would be talking with the membership folks were just so nice and said such great things about the station.

It was wonderfully write down the comments and pass 'em on to the people at the station to let them know how appreciated they were.

So not one memory.

A lot of memories.

- So that's we all we could hope for.

Because you've been a huge memory for us here at the station with all of your help and service.

So have you gained from all of this experience, what, how has it enriched your life?

- Well, it's fun and it does make me feel as if maybe I'm helping a little bit, giving back a little bit.

I, I really do credit this station in part for my good health because way back in the nineties I learned Tai Chicha online from WPBS 'cause that's what was being broadcast.

I would never have found it otherwise.

And so I do this set, I've known it since then I do it off and on.

And then I think, yeah, it's part of my health and wellbeing.

- Wonderful.

- Thank you.

WPBS.

- That's so, so wonderful.

We're super happy that you're really enjoying that.

And we do have extra programming in the mornings for stretching for seniors.

So it's, it's still on air, so it's great stuff.

So tell us a story from your volunteer work or life in general that just really still resonates with you.

Is there a moment like in your childhood where you saw something and you said, I wanna give back like that?

- I can't think of one.

And I think it's probably 'cause it's, again, it's a compilation.

Folks would come back from, oh, maybe a missionary trip somewhere and they would have photographs of before and after.

You know, there was no building here and now there's a building.

These kids had no school, now they've got books.

They're learning and things are progressing.

So it's that kind of a thing, sort of an idea of making a difference.

Not in that way.

I, I don't think I ever saw myself making a big difference, but a little difference.

'cause we can all do little things.

- That's right.

We certainly can.

Now I also understand that you have just started volunteering with a local senior center.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

- Yep.

Just finished the course for hospice and palliative care and I'm not, I'm not a thousand percent sure what I'll be doing.

- Okay.

- There are possibilities for either working either yes.

Working with folks who are in an end phase of life or with the caregivers of people who are going through that or both.

I, I don't quite know.

The one thing I did recently though is to go to the butterfly release.

There's an annual release of butterflies to honor people who have died within the past year.

- Oh, - Two years ago when my mom died.

And it wasn't the area where we live, but I still could go to the butterfly release and do this lovely honoring and just watch these beautiful creatures fly free.

So that's, that was then that I took part in 'cause I needed it this year.

I could vol be as a volunteer there and help with other folks.

- So you're saying you needed it.

So volunteering really does fill a special space in your life.

So what have you gained and learned from your volunteer experience, both from PBS and in your, your new service that you're going into?

I - Guess a bigger appreciation for what I've been gifted in life.

And I don't just mean material stuff, but, but the ability to be of help to somebody else in some way.

The gift to listen to people, to be there with or for them and to contribute.

As I said, they look good.

I love that.

- Oh, but all those little bits they do add up.

Absolutely they do.

Even, you know, a whole group of people can move the mountains, as they say.

Fantastic.

What would you say to somebody who's kind of lost and not really sure where to start volunteering?

What do you, what do you tell them to get them to start volunteering?

- I, I would tell them my experience of looking for a place that you value appreciate and you wanna say thank you to in some way.

And see if there's an entree.

There was an easy one here for us.

I'm sure there are other groups, associations.

If you belong to groups, then there's usually somebody, some volunteer portion attached to that.

But I think really just go with your heart and if you really value something, choose that.

- Fantastic.

If you could have any volunteer job in the world, what would it be?

- Hmm.

If I could have a magic wand with it, I tell you it would be to go in any hospital, every hospital and brighten up the place, bring cheer, bring a sense of love and joy And healing, healing, healing.

- That's definitely something the world could use for sure.

How fun is that?

I think that's a fantastic way to think about it.

That's really great.

Now you also spend a lot of time volunteering with your, with your husband Norm, who we've interviewed on this show here.

So what's a fun story between the two of you when you volunteering together?

Do you have any fun stories about that?

- Oh my goodness.

The advantage of getting older is that a lot of memories just meld.

So there isn't anyone, but I know it was one of the motivators for coming here was that we could do it together.

It wasn't another case of he volunteered there, I volunteered here, that kind of thing.

It was, hey, we can go together and it's longish, drive down here and back.

So you got some quality time in the car - And some adventures along the way, I imagine.

Absolutely.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

Wow.

Well, Nancy, thank you so much for all of your service and help here at WPBS.

We couldn't have done it at all without you we're so grateful and we look so much forward to your help in the future.

Thank you so much for being with us.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

WPBS.

- Thanks for joining us today.

It's a reminder that bears repeating.

No one achieves anything alone.

The world needs a helping hand.

The world needs you go out and make a difference.