Community Volunteer Spotlight��������������������������������

Community Volunteer in the Spotlight

by Susan Guerrero

“Volunteer Extraordinaire” could easily be Gisele Yetz’s middle name.

Throughout her life, the Pittsfield native has volunteered. Mention an agency throughout the City and Yetz has probably done something for somebody there. She drove a van for the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP), has helped with various local food pantries, ran a gift shop at Hillcrest Commons Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and has made wellness calls to seniors who are patrons of the Ralph J. Froio Senior Center. One year she served lunch to people who came to the Froio Center’s daily lunch program to eat, she said. At RSVP in 2020, Gisele was chosen from among almost 300 volunteers as Volunteer of the Year.

She currently continues to make picturesque and warm lap blankets for Hillcrest Commons residents and every month she also sits down and makes out 20 “hello” greeting cards to Hillcrest residents and sends them to let them know someone is thinking of them, she said.

Those are just a mere smattering of volunteer jobs Yetz has dabbled in.

“Volunteering has great rewards, making someone happy and giving peace of mind to one or more individuals,” she said.

Her spirit of volunteerism goes way back to her childhood. “My parents were firm believers in helping people,” she said. Her own first volunteering assignment came when she was just 11 years old. It was “sweeping sidewalks for cookies,” she laughed as she recalled how the job evolved. There were two elderly sisters who never married and who lived together in the Atwood Avenue area. They were neighbors of Yetz’s family. They were very particular about their yard, she said. When she swept their sidewalk, they paid her in chocolate chip cookies.

When Yetz’s husband died eight years ago from cancer, she was devastated but that didn’t stop her from continuing to volunteer. It actually helped her to feel useful and keep occupied.

Even this past May, Yetz visited 18 houses on three streets near her home in the city.

She left messages notifying them that she was collecting canned goods for people in need.

Yetz collected 18 bags of canned goods for the Salvation Army on West Street, she said.

When her own two adult children were little, Yetz said, along with a nun, Sister Kathleen Wallace, who was a Sister of St. Joseph, and two former St. Theresa Church parishioners, the Nifty-Thrifty Shop was formed in the basement of the former St. Theresa’s Church on South Street. “It was so much fun,” she recalled.Yetz was already known by women in the church for donating plants for bazaars. The thrift shop remained open for three years, she said, and all the money made was given back to the church. She even made curtains for the shop’s windows.

“The kids played dress-up,” while Yetz tended to the shop. In those days, it cost five cents for a pair of socks and $5 for a suit, she said. Every so often, the Nifty Thrifty Shop even offered shoppers to fill a bag with merchandise for $2, she recalled.

For more than 12 years, Yetz, along with Shirley Andrus, ran the fundraising bingo kitchen Saturday nights at St. Mark’s Church on West Street, she said. It was a huge operation that required many hours of cooking. She would start the night before the bingo sessions by baking cakes. Then, on the morning of bingo playing, cooking in three different crock pots would begin. The food kitchen finally closed up shop when everyone was fed and the kitchen was cleaned.

Also at St. Mark’s, Yetz served as a lector and even cleaned pews and straightened missals in the pews after Masses.

For the past eight years, Gisele has made quilted as well as fleece blankets to place in cages at the Berkshire Humane Society and Allen Heights Veterinary Hospital so furry friends could be cozy and feel safe, Yetz said. Yetz has made scarves and lap blankets for people in the city’s homeless shelters, too. From the tiniest members of society to elderly residents, there is hardly a portion of the population that has not been impacted by her generous, handmade gifts.

For example, newborn babies at Berkshire Medical Center have received Yetz’s soft, knitted mittens and hats. Veterans who live at Soldier On, on West Housatonic St. have received Yetz’s beautifully knitted scarves. Luckily, friends donate material for dozens upon dozens of lap blankets Yetz makes.

These days, she’s still knitting and sewing up a storm in her home. Whenever she’s sitting while watching television, out come the knitting needles and yarn. Nearby one is sure to find Kleo, Yetz’s nine-year-old Persian cat. “She’s very precious to me,” she said. If she is unable to sleep, Yetz gets up and works on lap blankets that are sure to be given to someone who will love their bright colors and warmth or on some other volunteer project.

“My hands are always moving,” Yetz said with a smile. So is her heart since she is always thinking of others and how she can serve, quietly, with dedication, and a lot of love.

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VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT

Elder Services’ Berkshire Senior , August - September 2022

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