#PeopleofNEI: Ron, serving the community

Northeast Indiana is evolving. These are the people shaping its future. #PeopleofNEI

This week’s feature:

View this post on Instagram

Ron grew up in southeast Fort Wayne with his brothers. A graduate of Heritage High School and Ball State University, he recently retired from MKM architecture + design. He talks about the spirit of volunteering and how it can take different shapes and forms throughout someone’s life. His volunteer efforts are both local and national including assisting those impacted by Hurricane Irma. “I think, at different times in your life, you have different ways you can volunteer. With the Red Cross, I started giving blood in college and did that for 10 years. Early in my career, I started thinking how I could volunteer. I ended up becoming a board member for the Red Cross for 15 years. Now that I am retired, I’m doing things like deployments. I’ve always been intrigued with social services and the arts. Both my wife and I are involved. We like to serve food at the Rescue Mission and are active donors. You see more of what is going on by actively participating and not just giving money. Serving food to fellow humans that need help can change your mind on a lot of things. Volunteering is connecting the strongest elements in your life with how you can serve currently. Anyone can serve at anytime in their life in different roles including time, money, intelligence, or your own blood. Find a way to serve other people. We encourage our kids to see how other people live. I’m a proud parent of three daughters. One works in a women’s shelter, another is a physician because of the impact of mission work that she completed earlier in her life, and another is a speech therapist that helps children. I am so aware of our northeast Indiana family values. My dad was a factory worker at G.E. and had a high school education, and my mom didn’t finish high school. Family is why I stayed in northeast Indiana. I wouldn’t volunteer in the places that my kids do, but I set up an environment as a parent to encourage them to seek out the opportunities that they connect with. Life is not all about getting; it’s about giving, too. The infrastructure of Fort Wayne is a wonderful mix of arts, community service, and a caring environment that allows me to do just that.” #PeopleofNEI

A post shared by Input Fort Wayne (@inputfortwayne) on Nov 5, 2018 at 7:00am PST

#PeopleofNEI: Ron, serving the community

Author

Related Articles