My Volunteer Experience
at The Brown Homestead
National Volunteer Week (NVW) is a chance to highlight the value of volunteers and their positive impact on society. This year, NVW runs from April 27 to May 3 and as part of the celebration we are highlighting our Volunteer Program by sharing an article penned by one of our very own.
St. Catharines resident Maria Laws has been involved in numerous projects since joining our extraordinary group of volunteers in 2023. In today’s article you can follow along with Maria’s TBH journey so far to see how she has contributed to our vision, and what it has meant for her personally.
TBH volunteers participating in an orientation session
When I first thought about volunteering with TBH my motives were purely selfish.
I just really wanted a more personal connection to a historical building and its gardens, which are two of my personal interests. I didn’t know quite what lay ahead, but I knew that if I could have a connection to The Brown Homestead and help in keeping the facility relevant, then surely that would satisfy the craving I had.
Through the years, both in Canada and Britain, I’ve often visited historical homes, museums, and national historic sites as a visitor, a tourist or a passer-by, a patron marveling at the architecture, the setting, the staging of furniture and artifacts. Intrigued by the stories of those who once built and inhabited those places was the appeal to me personally. But my one-time role was as observer, appreciative on-looker and that transitory experience often left me wanting more. Involvement was temporary, and fleeting…
In my local Niagara region, full of history, I wanted more of a relationship with these historical venues, these still living entities of Canadian local history that would hopefully, give me a deeper connection to those who came before. I wanted to more fully know their struggles, dreams, hopes and often hard physical work given to establish these places we tread through as 21st century visitors.
Garden Keepers assist with the Homestead’s seedling growing initiatives and maintain the garden during the growing season.
Growing at the Homestead
So answering the call for volunteers at The Brown Homestead 2 years ago my volunteer beginning, rather optimistically, was with the newly established Victory Garden project. I drew a line of connection back from the Homestead’s Victory Garden to its earlier days & the efforts of the first inhabitants. I looked back on the history of the Homestead beginning with Magdalena Zeh and John Brown and their family, as United Empire Loyalists taking up their plot of land assigned by the government. I learned that the Brown family sustained their existence by farming the land and even setting up a tavern within the family home. I began to see the Brown family’s new life here as their own victory over the rigours of the political chaos of the times that brought them to the property adjacent to the now Short Hills Provincial Park.
Volunteers filling the garden boxes
So that day in early spring 2023, helping to create a garden with other volunteers, the practical project itself was, and still is, a statement of community support in sharing the eventual harvest with food banks. And in another way, the act of new gardening on the Brown family land resurrects the spirit and determination to survive of those determined new Canadians, the Brown family, two hundred plus years ago. For me, the creation of a Victory Garden honours the Brown family’s efforts in their new land, and is a living, breathing entity that ensures their story is not forgotten.
So I did my best with others of my mature age group that day. We shoveled gravel for the base of the newly-built wooden raised beds first from an intimidating pile of gravel nearby into the provided wheel-barrows. From there the intention was to wheel the barrows over to the waiting raised beds.
There were young, strong kids and grandkids on hand and they were soon put into action tackling this next step. Once alongside the beds, we shoveled gravel into the raised wooden beds and soon we were ready to fill up with soil. Same process with the wheel-barrow, a different pile, and again the youngsters came to the rescue. It was a team effort.
“It felt very satisfying to see how my individual meagre efforts, with other volunteers, helped to create something very significant to the gardening project at the Homestead. ”
Further garden volunteer opportunities with TBH volunteers as “Garden Keepers” have engaged me in the early indoor seeding of vegetable and herb plants both for gardens and as part of the Giveaway project to the community. I’m happy to contribute along with another volunteer in the record-keeping of the work by digitizing the written progress of the project.
Learning at the Homestead
Maria Laws has been volunteering at The Brown Homestead since 2023.
I eventually found other volunteer roles and projects at The Brown Homestead to enjoy and learn. In the volunteer area of Research & Collections, I enjoy helping to digitize the writings and photographs of the past families who made their home in the Homestead. In the area of Events and Outreach, spreading the word about the community hub that TBH has become is a great way to share my volunteer interest with others. Assisting staff at presentations at the library or a community centre as a helper in the set-up & clear-up of the event, and as well engaging conversationally with community participants goes a long way in making community connections and feeling that as a volunteer, I’ve helped in the process.
It’s a very good opportunity to personally benefit from the various educational workshops offered at TBH by helping out in a volunteer capacity. In April, I volunteered at the CanFilmDay event, where I got to view the screening of the Canadian documentary Singing Back the Buffalo while also helping the event run smoothly! Then a delicious opportunity to learn more about the domestic layers of lives lived at TBH by examining the 25 layers of wallpaper used by the 4 families at the Homestead during a 200+ year history! Helping out as a volunteer at this community event at the St. Catharines Public Library was an indulgence for me, all the while fulfilling a volunteer role!
Because of my keen gardening interest, I’m also looking forward to sharing with the community, the seedlings that the Garden Keepers at TBH have grown, and will be on hand as a volunteer for the Seedling Giveaway in May. And another great opportunity to learn and contribute as a volunteer will be at the Natural Pigments and Watercolour Paints workshop to be held in June.
And that’s all happening just this spring!
National Volunteer Week
I find it noteworthy, and more than a little serendipitous, that National Volunteer Week had its Canadian beginnings in 1943, and to learn the reason it was established. Organized by the W.V.S., the Women’s Voluntary Service, under the then Department of Canadian War Services, National Volunteer Week was established to motivate women to enlist for wartime voluntary service and to recognize women’s work on the home-front contributing to the war effort.
From working in munitions factories, manufacturing, and in farm fields across the province as Farmerettes supporting the depleted war-time food production economy, women’s work both paid and unpaid was recognized as wartime voluntary work. It has a proud and if not, until recently, little publicized history. Many women signed-up, in a sense, freely chose, and volunteered their labours to the cause.
Since those early years, the designated Volunteer Week has come to celebrate all Canadians who volunteer in all areas of service.
“The time donated to worthy causes by volunteerism is the back-bone of many organizations and non-profits in our western world. It’s keeping the doors open.”
I would say to those considering a volunteer role with TBH to take the leap and go for it. If you have volunteered elsewhere then you know that volunteering is a way to give your time to strengthen your community, but as well it enhances your own personal quality of life. If volunteering is a new idea to you, and you are considering TBH as the recipient of your time, then you will hopefully be encouraged to know that staff at the Homestead are very welcoming, friendly and supportive. They will make your entry as a newbie volunteer easy and seamless. They truly appreciate the work, time, and skills you will contribute to the Homestead. And it’s a great venue in which you can find a niche that speaks to your own passion, that suits your personality, meets your interests and provides opportunities to build on your experiences. The flexible schedule can easily fit into your lifestyle. And I’d be happy to offer you my help as a ‘buddy’ in your new role until you get the hang of things, if that would be helpful.
Some attendees of the 2024 Volunteer Family Meal
Overall I find my volunteer work has contributed to my sense of well-being, resurrecting skills and abilities that had gone unused and become rather rusty, and made me feel productive again and more appreciative of myself! And for me, as a life-long learner, volunteering at the TBH is a never-ending resource of learning opportunities that connect with so many other subjects. Whether working with a group of other volunteers, or working independently on projects, there is a good range of volunteer roles and areas from which to choose and find your niche. You can thrive through a social connection with others in working toward a shared goal and that is a very gratifying feeling as a volunteer, while contributing to a cause meaningful to your own interests and values.
As an individual I very much enjoy a personal connection with history at TBH, where volunteering lets my imagination soar about past lives lived in this Homestead, and those lives for me become a continuation of a living history.