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A dedicated volunteer in the Silver Creek community

OBSERVER Photo by Marilyn Kurzawa Above: Candy Weitz is pictured checking a book in the Children’s section of the Book Sale Room in the Anderson-Lee Library.

By MARILYN KURZAWA

OBSERVER Correspondent

SILVER CREEK — For some people, volunteering is a way of life. It’s just second nature to them to find organizations that seek assistance with all types of work and pitch in and do it. It’s acting with caring and concern for community and not just saying, “Someone should….” These people become the “someone.”

Candy Weitz is one of those “someones” who have made a huge difference in the Silver Creek community. As a life-long resident of this area and a graduate of Silver Creek High School, she cares deeply about her community and its members who are in need of food, clothing, and reading materials, among other needs.

Candy works tirelessly all year for Friends of the Anderson-Lee Library, spear-heading their efforts to raise funds for children’s programs at the library and to augment library funds for special projects. She is the back-bone of all fundraising efforts, although she says that she plans to take a back seat for all fundraisers except the book sale.

It is her efforts on the book sale that drew my attention to her contributions. Anyone who has attended the sale event at the Anderson-Lee Library on Main Street in Silver Creek, which lasts from the Wednesday evening to the Saturday afternoon of the weekend of the Festival of Grapes in the village of Silver Creek, will attest to the superb organization of the tables of books, the sheer numbers of books for sale, the low prices, and the friendliness of the people who volunteer to assist in the effort.

If you happened to miss the sale this year, no worries. According to Candy, “Many, many books were set aside in the Book Sale room of the library and continue to be sold throughout the year. In addition to the availability of print and audio books, donors can drop off their gently-used books in this room at any time to augment the inventory of books for sale, or they can drop them off at the library front desk.” This means that new contributions frequently are found on the shelves, so book lovers always have a reason to visit the Book Sale room to peruse the shelves and make great finds.

There is a small army of other volunteers who assist Candy. According to one who wished to remain nameless, “I can’t imagine a better run book sale! Everything is organized by category of books, and many are in alphabetical order by author’s last name. When you see the volume of books to be sold at very low prices, you realize how much planning, organization and time has gone into the preparation for this sale.”

Candy told me, “Since books arrive at any time during the year, I come into the library at least twice a week to sort and restock the shelves. When we have filled the shelves, I set books aside for the next sale during the Festival of Grapes. Thankfully, we have a storage shed, so I put boxes of sorted books out there. On the day before the sale begins, the library staff helps me unload the shed, puts the boxes on labeled tables, and then volunteers unpack them and continue the sorting process.”

There are as many as 72 volunteers who help with unpacking the boxes, selling the books, and then packing boxes again. “I usually come in on Sunday after the sale to select books that will be moved on Monday morning to the Book Sale room. The rest are repacked into boxes and then donated to a local charitable agency for their use. This year, Chautauqua County Rural Ministry picked up many boxes of books to be used by their agency,” said Candy. “Other boxes of books went to the Veterans’ Hospital in Buffalo; children’s books to the Department of Social Services in Jamestown; to St. Columban’s-on-the-Lake Retirement Home; to Heritage Park in Gerry and Jamestown; to a women’s and children’s shelter in Jamestown; to Literacy Volunteers, and to others. It’s a win-win for everyone, especially the dedicated readers of our community.

In addition to this fundraising effort, Candy also organizes and manages one of the community’s largest bake sales. The first Friday in June will find volunteers in the library, at Smith’s True Value Hardware Store, and even on the street with a little wagon filled with goodies, selling the donated baked goods from Friends of the Library. Once again, Candy can be found with the 20 or so volunteers who sell the cookies, cakes, pies, and other treats made by about 40 donors.

“I start calling people who have indicated that they will bake for this event about three to four weeks before the event. Then I hope they follow-through and bring their donations to the library on the night before or the morning of the Friday sale. Volunteers are waiting at the library to sort and price the donations, and then the sales pitches begin,” reported Candy. “Last year (2016) we made over $1,000 on our efforts.”

“The event that brings in the most money is our Christmas raffle in December,” said Candy. “For this event, I work with the other members of the Friends Board to solicit donations, post flyers about the event, and then sell raffle tickets.”

All of this requires the attention to detail, the organization and planning, and the tireless efforts of the manager of all these events, Candy Weitz.

It would seem that with all of this work for the Friends of the Anderson-Lee Library, there would be no time for any other organizations. Not true! Candy also donates part of two days a month to the Silver Creek Food Pantry, where she either processes client in-take forms or she helps pack foods for the families. Then, “If I see a task that needs to be done, even if no one asks for the service, I do it just because….” For instance, she spent a couple of days defrosting a huge freezer because there was no room on the top shelf for more foods because the frost had built up so much. This type of service is truly the mark of a great volunteer.

Then, since the need never ends, Candy also helps sort clothing once a week at the Ruth Remsen Clothing Center, behind the First United Presbyterian Church in Silver Creek. There, she and about four other volunteers open the bags of clothing that have been dropped off, hang them, price them, and place them on the appropriate racks for sale at extremely low prices each Friday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

Since Candy found an open couple of hours in her busy schedule, she just recently offered to assist the Culinary Club of St. Columban’s-on-the-Lake Retirement Home with their baking projects. This Energizer Bunny never stops!

When she isn’t helping others, she can be found in her extensive gardens during part of three seasons of the year. “I love to garden, to read, to knit, to care for my cats, and to enjoy the company of others. Since I live alone, I need to get out more to be with other people, so my volunteering helps with that need for socialization, and my house and gardens fill my spare moments so that I never become bored.”

Before retiring, Candy was a registered nurse, but not in a typical situation. She worked at the J,N. Adam Developmental Center for many years before it closed. Following that, she worked in two different correctional facilities, first in Gowanda and then in Brocton.

“I never found time for volunteering during those intense workdays, especially when I would work 16-hour shifts. Following a shift like that, it would take a day just to catch up on sleep,” said Candy.

When I asked her what advice she would have for others who haven’t yet taken that first step into volunteering, she thought for a minute, and then she said, “Volunteering is so good for you that all you have to do is look around you, find someone who volunteers and follow in their footsteps.” She also thinks that “Those who do volunteer should try to convince others of the value of volunteering, invite them to join you, and then encourage them to stick with it.” All it takes is a little convincing that their efforts will be rewarded by the feeling of having done something worthwhile and valuable to others.

Unfortunately (or fortunately for those who wish to volunteer), it seems that all organizations are seeking additional volunteers to help with the enormous tasks before them. Candy noted the need for new board members on the Friends of the Anderson-Lee Library board. “There are seven to nine board meetings a year, some e-mail communications, and the expectation that board members will assist with events. The annual meeting is coming up, so we hope that some new people will venture onto the board.”

As of this minute, Candy plans not to continue as the first vice-president of the board with the main responsibility of fundraising, but to continue her work on the book sale. With all of her skills in planning, organization, and implementation, she will surely find a way to use her skills to enhance the growth of other fund-raising efforts — although she really isn’t looking.

When you talk to Candy Weitz, you find a person with a passion for helping others, a down-to-earth view of what it takes to improve a community by working together, and a conviction that if we do all work together we can do great things. And she invites us all to join her!

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