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KURT HOLZMAN
VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR 2005 AWARD
Kurt began volunteering in the Habitat Office in November of 2003. He stopped by one day after a visit to the Allentown Library, where he would often spend time after riding the bus from his home in West Allentown. We had a newsletter mailing coming up, so Yolanda asked Kurt if he could come back and help with that. He could. Over the course of the following weeks, Kurt helped out with several more office tasks, working with prospective homeowners, other office volunteers, by that January Kurt had started coming to the office regularly.
Nowadays, Kurt is such a regular volunteer that when he has to miss a day Chris tells him that he's sorry but he doesn't have any vacation days left. Kurt helps Yolanda and all of us in the office in so many ways. He answers the phones, copies numerous forms and letters for mailings, and does data entry of volunteer and donor records. He also has excellent computer skills in Excel and Word, which make it a pleasure to give him tasks knowing that they will be completed carefully and accurately. He regularly helps with acknowledging donor gifts, and has surely sent out hundreds of volunteer and homeowner applications. One of Kurt's most valuable qualities as a volunteer is his willingness and ability to explain our program and its guidelines to telephone callers. He gets a lot of practice in the course of an average day!
We really got to know Kurt when Habitat decided to invest in new software to maintain our records. Since Kurt is very interested in databases, we called upon him often to help with converting our old Access database to the new system. He compared files to each other to ensure that they had converted correctly, filled in data that could not be converted, and helped customize the user manual to reflect Habitat's procedures. His conscientious way of working was extremely helpful in completing a project like this where accuracy in the details is so important. Even today Kurt is our resident expert on setting up new donors and volunteers in the database.
Kurt is also a big help to Yolanda in her dual role as office manager and volunteer coordinator. When we have a Blitz, you will find Kurt working at the site making sure that everyone has their Waiver signed and just taking care of all the necessary paperwork that goes into building for Habitat.
Since June of this year, Kurt has played a new role at Habitat – he has taken over as bookkeeper since pat Hudson retired. He pays all the bills, which is a challenge during the busy construction season. He also enters all the mortgage payments from the Habitat homeowners, and makes sure that their tax and insurance bills are paid on time. And If that's not enough, he does special projects related to tracking the homeowners' escrow payments, gathering information on our subcontractors, and setting up new homeowner accounts. Once all that is done, he still helps keep the database updated to minimize costs from returned newsletters and mailings.
That is why he so eminently deserves this special volunteer award – he truly supports the Habitat mission in every way he can. Not only in the quality of his work, but also quantity – 1500+ hours and counting!
CONGRATULATIONS!
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