Outstanding Volunteers and Donors of 2016
Each year as part of our Donor and Volunteer Appreciation Event, we honor a few outstanding individuals who have gone above and beyond for the Center. Please help us celebrate the following individuals, who received their awards at this year’s Appreciation Event.
Outstanding Volunteer Award
Howard Lowe
An attorney by night and mediator by day, Howard has embraced the facilitative mediation model since joining us in 2006. Howard has mediated nearly 150 sessions for WDRC over the years. He has been instrumental in helping us strengthen our processes and mediator skill sets specific to drafting resolutions. He helped craft a tip sheet, has coached and trained our mediation students, and has consistently offered his expertise and enthusiasm to advance our mission.
Bill Paleck
Bill began mediating in 2010 and has mediated more than 70 unique sessions across all program areas. He has a gentle, thoughtful way of interacting with clients and we’ve come to rely upon him as mentor. Bill generously, dependably, and intentionally volunteers his time with us, even for clients we serve that are able to make financial contributions themselves. His doing so enables us to offer scholarships consistently to mediation students, and help grow our pool of volunteers even further.
Rifka accepts an award and hug from WDRC Executive Director Moonwater. Photo by Bellingham Photographer Phil Rose.
Rifka MacDonald
When asked to describe Rifka, our staff shared words such as steady, thoughtful, supportive, fun, competent, selfless, event queen, champion. For nearly 4 years, she has quietly, competently, and willingly participated in almost every event we’ve hosted – managed spreadsheets, trained and supervised volunteers, designed posters, facilitated registrations, moved boxes, set up, cleaned up and more. Recently, she has even provided bookkeeping support. Rifka has added incredible depth to our capabilities and our team, and we are so grateful for her contributions.
Joan Cervisi
Joan joined our board in 2011. Words that people use to describe her are dedicated, steadfast, courageous, supportive, leader, vision-driven, advocate and ambassador. Joan felt a values alignment from the beginning of her time with us, and over time began to find ways to contribute that pushed her outside her comfort zone a bit, and were tremendously helpful to the WDRC. Over the past 6 years Joan has helped us to nurture strategic partnerships, champion fundraising efforts, and lead our board through exciting changes to help position the Center for growth. We are so grateful for her contributions and want to recognize her enthusiasm and support for our mission with this award.
Joan Cervisi accepting her award. Photo by Bellingham Photographer Phil Rose.
Board Service Award
N.F. Jackson
N.F. was instrumental in helping us launch the Supervised Visitation program, edit training materials for our parenting course, develop policy templates, refine our budgeting process, revamp an entire online organization system for us, and more. While his tireless efforts may have encroached on his own sleeping abilities, he left a legacy of positive change at the DRC.
N.F. and Moonwater at the WDRC Appreciation Event. Photo by Bellingham Photographer Phil Rose.
Outstanding Contribution Award to Decade Long Major Donors
Bringing our mission to fruition is a collective effort. As we are now in our 25th year of service to the community, we wanted to take a moment to acknowledge some donors extraordinary commitment to peace in our community.
Our revenue comes from a variety of sources – one of those sources are an important group of people who year after year have consistently contributed major gifts to the WDRC. These ongoing and invaluable partnerships serve as a strong and critical foundation for the center to grow and thrive. We are so grateful for their leadership and generosity.
Janet Lightner of Boundary Bay Brewing Company accepts the Outstanding Contribution Award. Photo by Bellingham Photographer Phil Rose.
For the past 10 years these folks have made major gift contributions to the WDRC.
- Janet Lightner and Ed Bennet of Boundary Bay Brewery
- Tom and Erin McNutt of Boccemon
- Mary Redman, of the Mary Redman Foundation
A heartfelt thanks to each of those donors, and to other contributors and volunteers that have stepped forth and committed to support the WDRC.