Volunteers needed ... front and Center

Joan Lemme heads up the book department at the Leydig Center. Lemme is a long-time volunteer at Leydig, and she’s helped enlist others to help at the resale shop. “We started, then we brought our friends and relatives into it, and then hopefully they would bring their friends and relatives into it.”

Volunteer Janis Butterbaugh works in the seasonal section at Leydig Center in Dixon. She said her fellow volunteers at Leydig are like a second family. “They care about what happens to you as a volunteer, whether it be a crisis, a death, surgery ... It always has touched my heart.”

DIXON — When Joan Lemme taught at Dixon Public Schools decades ago, one of her lessons involved a question written on the chalkboard for her students to answer: “When were you the happiest?”

“They put all of their answers on the board, and what always had the most answers was ‘When I make somebody else happy,’” Lemme said.

Now in retirement, Lemme, 83, volunteers her time along with more than 100 others to give clothes, books, toys and a whole host of other items a second lease on life at Leydig Center, a resale shop where proceeds support local charitable organizations after operating costs are factored in.

For Lemme, volunteering has been a labor of love for more than 45 years, as it was for her husband Gene, who passed away nearly 2 years ago.

Together, the Lemmes recruited friends, church members and others to help out at Leydig, providing people a place where they could find everyday items at a price they could afford.

The Lemmes’ legacy of friendly cajoling became contagious, and other volunteers have done their share of recruiting, too.

“Basically, when you volunteer, it’s friends that get you into it,” Lemme said. “We started, then we brought our friends and relatives into it, and then hopefully they would bring their friends and relatives into it.” Volunteers’ steadfast spirit of giving their time and toil has been what’s helped Leydig Center serve the community for more than 40 years, but a triple punch of challenges has left Leydig looking for a way to get the spirit to move more people. The combination of the COVID-19 pandemic, aging volunteers and a rising demand for more inventory has put Leydig Center in a pinch. It takes more than 500 hours of work per week among its all-volunteer staff to keep the place open for more than two days a week, but recently the volunteer hours just aren’t adding up to meet the demand. This summer saw an average of 60 people help out each week, and most for only 2 or 3 hours.

ALEX T. PASCHAL/APASCHAL@SAUKVALLEY.COM

LEYDIG cont’d to page 12

Looking for a good book or a classic for class? Or maybe you want to dress up the dinner table with some decor. You’ll find them at Leydig Center, along with clothes, electronics, toys, furniture and more.

Volunteers sort donations, determine what’s sellable and toss out what can’t be sold, stock the shelves and racks, and run cash registers. Currently, the store is open to shoppers from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Thursday, and donations are accepted only from 8 a.m. to noon that day — a far cry from once being open 7 days a week. Tuesday serves as a work day for the staff to get merchandise in order. More volunteers would make it possible to expand shopping and drop-off hours to include Saturdays — in fact the store was able to open on a recent Saturday, and additional Saturdays are planned if help allows.

All items that are donated need to be clean and in working condition, and multiple items also need to be presorted.

Some volunteers have been pulling double duty to keep up with demand. Gwen Weidman, 60, has volunteered her time for nearly 5 years in the jewelry department, but many times has been called upon to run a cash register. Despite the changes and challenges, volunteers still enjoy rising to the occasion and doing their part to help make someone’s day brighter with items they need or want but can’t afford elsewhere. “I’ve met different people when I volunteer, and when

I’m up at the cash register I get to see people that I don’t normally get to see on a regular basis,” Weidman said. “It’s a great place to volunteer because all of the money goes back into the community, and I think it’s important because the resources can go back to where it’s much needed.”

ALEX T. PASCHAL/APASCHAL@SAUKVALLEY.COM LEYDIG cont’d to page 13

Putting a smile on a person’s face and bargain in their bags isn’t the only benefit of helping out at Leydig. Volunteers enjoy a sense of camaraderie knowing they’re working together for a common purpose.

Like Lemme, Janice Butterbaugh, 84, also is a retired Dixon Public School teacher, and a lifetime of helping care for kids has segued at Leydig into caring for others in the community, especially those in need.

“We have our ‘family’ families, we have our church ‘family,’ but we also have our Leydig family,’” Butterbaugh said. “They care about what happens to you as a volunteer, whether it be a crisis, a death, surgery, whatever. Cards are sent. It always has touched my heart.”

Butterbaugh has volunteered her time to make sure people’s donations find new homes since before the Leydig Center began its mission of helping others more than 50 years ago, when its namesake, Eurith Leydig, began collecting items and giving them away from her basement. Leydig passed away in 1970, but Butterbaugh and others who helped her during those early years have continued her legacy of giving to the community.

The store has been in several locations through the years, most recently on the southeast edge of town since 2001, at 1107 Warp Road. In the past 50-plus years, the Leydig Center has given nearly $4 million to nearly 80 charitable and service organizations in the Dixon area — and that doesn’t include the in-kind donations, which have helped people faced with emergencies. Those seeking assistance from the Leydig Center need to be screened through another service organization.

An all-volunteer board of directors oversees the Leydig Center, led by president Sue Johnson, and as with volunteers, additional board members are being sought.

Johnson hopes that one of the fringe benefits of the job helps bring more people out to lend a hand: “There’s nothing that can be described as far as the feeling you can get when you know you’re helping someone,” she said. “You don’t know who that someone is, but there’s someone who needs a lamp, another who needs a toaster and can’t afford to buy a new one. By us having the doors open, we provide a service to that population. When you volunteer here, you know you’ve helped somebody.”

There’s no shortage of things for volunteers to do at the store, regardless of age or ability — checking items in or checking people out, sorting or stocking, there’s a place for everyone at Leydig Center.

“We need volunteers,” longtime volunteer Donna Giltner said, and like the store’s commitment to customers — to offer something for everyone — Giltner and her fellow volunteers are committed to do the same for volunteers.

“If they’re sitting home all by themselves, [helping out can be] a social thing. We’re always friendly. If they don’t like one area, or think it’s too hard, we’ll find something for them. There’s something for everybody.” n

More info

The Leydig Center, 1107 Warp Road, Dixon, is open for shopping from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, and donations are accepted 8 a.m. to noon that day. Visit during shopping hours or call 815-2847772 to volunteer or for more information. A Leydig Center Facebook page is planned for the near future.

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