By Anthony Gorges
JC Post
United Way of Junction City/Geary County held their annual event honoring their volunteers and naming their Ben Kitchens Volunteer of the Year award winner on Friday afternoon. Several partner agencies and volunteers were in attendance.
This year's Ben Kitchens Volunteer of the Year Award winner was Rosemary Woods.
Woods has volunteered at the food pantry for the last eight and a half years. She began volunteering because her daughter wanted to find a way to help out the community through Girl Scouts. Her daughter has since graduated, but Woods, and now her husband continue volunteering.
Debbie Johns, Director of the Geary County Food Pantry submitted the nomination of Woods for the Volunteer of the Year award.
The nomination letter read, "Rosemary Woods serves many roles at the food pantry. All of them are unpaid and essential to our mission of providing food to those in our community who are underserved. She is always cheerful and courteous and is able to put everyone at ease in what for many is a stressful situation. She goes the extra mile to secure proper documentation and provides helpful information of our many services along with contacts to other agencies that can help."
United Way Executive Director Nichole Mader spoke at the event and expressed they could not do what they do without the volunteers and partners.
Mader spoke of the many impacts that United Way has made in the last year. She noted that over 700 pounds of food was donated to the Food Pantry following the "Stuff the Pantry" effort. She also said that the VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) Program filed over 400 taxes for families.
"Thank you so much for everything you all do; Our volunteers are priceless," Mader said.