Siloam Springs 2017 Volunteer Community of the Year
Drivers may have noticed new signs at the city limits designating Siloam Springs as a 2017 Volunteer Community of the Year.
Siloam Springs is one of 12 communities to win the award, which is co-sponsored by the Office of the Governor, the Governors Advisory Board on National Service and Volunteerism, the Arkansas Department of Human Services and the Arkansas Municipal League. It was presented at the municipal league’s winter conference in Fort Smith in January.
This is the second year Siloam Springs has submitted a nomination for the award, and first time it won. Siloam Springs communications manager Holland Hayden, who compiled statistics, wrote the city’s narrative for its nomination in September.
“It’s proof of the volunteer spirit of Siloam Springs and shows how we’re a community that truly helps and cares about each other,” Hayden said.
To prepare the nomination, Hayden called and emailed various organizations and churches around town asking to track the number of volunteers and volunteer hours each had accumulated over the past year. In a town of 16,448 people (according to 2016 U.S. Census Bureau estimates), the numbers were impressive, although a handful of folks who volunteer in Siloam Springs likely live outside of the city limits.
“What was reported to me was 7,115 specific volunteers with almost 100,000 hours of volunteer work,” Hayden said. “We only received responses from three or four churches and there are many more who do a lot volunteer work in and around our community, so I knew the total number of hours wasn’t exactly right.
“I knew there very well could be double that many who actually volunteer, but I didn’t want to overestimate, so I added just a 15 percent margin to make it a more accurate account of how many volunteers and volunteer hours are actually taking place in Siloam Springs.”
Nominations were reviewed by a panel of citizens representing a cross section of the state, according to the website volunteerar.org. The awards are designed to “offer thanks and a reward to the communities as a whole (rather than individuals within the communities) for their volunteer effort in serving their neighbors,” according to the website. Two signs rewarded to each city were donated by the Arkansas Highway Commission and each community’s volunteer programs will be recognized in the municipal league’s City & Town magazine.
Other 2017 winners are Benton, Bentonville, Clarkridge, Clarksville, Everton, Fort Smith, Greenbrier, Jonesboro, Marianna, Mountain Home and Van Buren.
Jerry Cavness contributed greatly to Siloam Springs’ volunteering tally and said the American Legion asked him to track the number of hours he volunteered.
“I’m not surprised that Siloam Springs won from what I’ve seen in our community,” Cavness said. “There is a tremendous amount of people involved in volunteering that don’t get credit for it because they’re not seeking attention or recognition. They are just going and helping and doing everything they can.
“This is a big deal and I’m glad we won. This is another great plug for what makes the city of Siloam Springs such a great place to live.”