OCTOBER 8, 2009 ISSUE
Giving Back
Live United Volunteer Spotlight—Rita Griffith
Editor’s Note: High Country Press is supporting the High Country United Way’s Live United campaign by spotlighting volunteers in our community. For the duration of the series, volunteers come into our office, pick up their Live United t-shirt and tell High Country Press their views on volunteerism and what they contribute to the community while encouraging others to make a local impact, as well. This week, we focus on Rita Griffith, who volunteers at The Hunger and Health Coalition, which is a United Way funded partner.
Since her retirement, Rita Griffith has regularly volunteered at The Hunger and Health Coalition in Boone and at a nursing home in Blowing Rock. “Because I don’t just wear the shirt, I live it.” Photo by Corinne Saunders
“I really think the Lord puts you on the earth to help other people,” said Rita Griffith, who volunteers once a week at The Hunger and Health Coalition—a local nonprofit that gives food and medicine to those who cannot afford to purchase those items.
“There’s always something you can do to help,” Griffith said. “Even if it’s only for an hour a week, I think you should help each other, not for money, just to do it.”
Griffith and her husband Serge owned two pharmacies and a gift shop in Florida for 40 years, and when they retired about nine years ago, the couple purchased a second home in Blowing Rock.
But Serge did not believe in “just retiring,” Griffith said. “His thing was do one day of charity work a week [once we retired]. We both agreed and that’s what we did.”
The couple volunteered with Habitat for Humanity on a weekly basis during the half of the year they spent in Florida, and during their time in Blowing Rock—from the end of April to the end of October—they volunteered with The Hunger and Health Coalition in Boone.
Serge, a compound pharmacist by trade, made medicines, and he volunteered as a pharmacist while Rita helped by packing food and working as a pharmacy technician.
“It was fun to [volunteer] together,” Griffith said.
Even while they were operating the pharmacies in Florida, Griffith recalled, her husband would fill prescriptions for free on Christmas Day. The couple also participated in cooking and serving meals with their church on a regular basis.
For years, she said, the area churches collaborated so that each church had a day of the week on which to serve a free meal to impoverished community residents.
Griffith and her husband also volunteered with Meals on Wheels for about eight years, she said.
Additionally, the couple put money collected from the store’s candy machine and from donations toward wholesale purchases of peanut butter, bread, diapers and other necessities for children at a home for abused children in West Palm Beach, Fla., she said.
They made a list of items purchased and posted it in the store so customers could see what they had helped purchase, she added.
They also helped deliver groceries to the elderly in Florida, and made sure that their five sons helped out, too, she said.
Since her husband passed away in the last year, Griffith has been volunteering two days each week—“one day for me and one day for him,” she said. “I know he’d want me to do it.”
Griffith goes to the nursing home in Blowing Rock and cuts, files and paints the ladies’ nails twice a month in addition to helping out at The Hunger and Health Coalition.
On Art in the Park days, she sells hot dogs in front of the Blowing Rock Library to fund the purchase of books.
Griffith is also a member of Mountain Friends, which sponsors an annual fundraiser. Griffith participated in the organization’s luncheon and silent auction to benefit area children this year.
Once the new Hospitality House facility opens, Griffith hopes to volunteer some time there as well.
“I feel everyone should give back to the community for what they receive in life,” Griffith said.
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