THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 26, 1995 TAG: 9504250134
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 166 lines
ONCE A YEAR Audrey Douglas-Cook and her daughters, Monique, 12, Maya, 9, and Megan, 5, pull an all-nighter in a cramped tent on a high school football field.
Three generations of the Pocta family, ranging in age from 5 to 69, regularly work under a blazing sun or in cold, damp drizzles in order to improve the habitat.
Substitute teacher Dawn Rose spends at least as much time working for city schools when she's not on the payroll as she does when she is on it. Her 14-year-old daughter, Maia, makes the 20-mile round trip from their Glenwood home to her unpaid job near the Oceanfront at least once a week, sometimes more.
What these Virginia Beach families do in their spare time, they do for two important reasons: their commitment to friends, neighbors and community and the satisfaction they receive from serving others.
Members of all three families are volunteers, representative of the millions of people nationwide who are being honored during this, National Volunteer Week.
Come May 19, Douglas-Cook and her daughters will join with nearly 2,000 other Hampton Roads residents in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life, a joyous, colorful, around-the-clock fund-raiser.
From 6 p.m. that day until 6 p.m. the next, each 12-member team will have someone walking on the Great Neck Middle School track. When team members aren't walking, they'll be sharing in the food and fun at the team's campsite or trying to snatch a few winks of sleep.
Why does the family get involved? Part of the reason is the sheer enjoyment they get from it. ``First of all, we just have a wonderful time doing it together,'' Douglas-Cook, nurse manager in Virginia Beach General Hospital's outpatient medical-surgery department, said.
Her second reason is more personal. Her work brings her in contact with cancer patients: both those who are hospitalized and those who come back for outpatient therapy.
``You see them when they're so sick,'' she said. ``Then you see them when they start to get better and then you lose contact with them.'' Often the next time she sees them is at the annual Relay for Life where the first lap is always taken by cancer survivors.
``I see so many that I know,'' Douglas-Cook said. ``We spend the first three hours just crying and touching. I wish more people would come out so they could see how many cancer survivors there are.''
And there is a third reason why Douglas-Cook and her family volunteer. ``I just think life is so short that you have to make the most of it while you're here,'' she said. ``I want my kids to grow up knowing that every day is a gift.''
For the three generations of the Pocta family, volunteering with the Virginia Beach Habitat Enhancement Committee to improve the city's environment is a matter of carrying on a tradition started by Alan Pocta's father.
``He was a mailman back in our small town in Ohio,'' the senior Pocta said, ``but he loved plants, he loved to see things grow. Even though he never finished high school he was always studying (plants). He always wanted to learn more. And he volunteered a lot, too. I guess we all inherited that from him,'' the retired oil company employee said.
Certainly Alan's son, Myles, an environmental project manager with Maguire Associates, inherited the family love for the land.
``I like putting my effort into the environment and putting back whatever I can,'' he said. ``I feel like we're real stake holders in the environmental resource arena,'' he added.
Even Myles' sons, fourth-grader Andrew, first-grader Chris and pre-kindergartner Travis, work beside their dad and granddad when they volunteer with the Virginia Beach Habitat Enhancement Committee.
The committee's job, as the name implies, is to improve and enhance the city's natural beauty. In practical terms that means wielding shovels and hoes to save creek banks and dunes, create wildlife habitats and make sure that the city's many miles of waterways are kept open and attractive.
The program operates under the Planning Department. Funding comes not from tax money but from grants, individual and business donations and the proceeds of fines levied for wetlands and dune violations.
Labor is provided by volunteers like the Poctas. One of their recent jobs was replanting the banks along the manmade waterway which connects London Bridge Creek with West Neck Creek.
On a recent hot windy afternoon the three generations of Poctas tramped along the canal bank just across from Fire Station 3 in Oceana Industrial Park. They were looking for the results of some of their previous work and carrying yet another tree to be planted.
Vicky Pocta, Alan's wife, watched from a nearby knoll along with Myles' wife, Rene, and 2-year-old Lindsay, who is still a little too young to be helping her older brothers, dad and granddad.
``We're the cheerleaders,'' Vicky Pocta said good-naturedly as she and Rene kept watchful eyes on both the workers and Lindsay.
Meanwhile, Andrew disappeared briefly to check the canal for tadpoles. ``We've got some in school and they're growing arms and legs now,'' he said. Although the terminology may not have been quite accurate, the interest in the earth around him was both deep and genuine.
``He already has a touch (for working with nature) about him,'' his grandfather said later.
The Rose family of the Glenwood neighborhood follows in a more traditional pattern of volunteer work. While the Cook and Pocta families make volunteering a family affair, each of the Roses goes his or her own way.
Fourth-grader Landen Rose is a soccer player and spelling champ who will soon be doing some volunteer work as a peer tutor.
It's the kind of thing that's just more or less expected in the Rose home. Landen's dad, Kevin, devotes his spare time to the choir at Salem United Methodist Church and to supporting the rest of the family in their volunteer efforts.
Which are extensive.
Maia, a Salem Middle School eighth-grader with a straight A average and a desire to go into marine biology, is a junior docent at the Virginia Marine Science Museum. She gets a lot of satisfaction from her volunteer work there.
``I feel like I've informed people about wildlife in the Chesapeake Bay,'' she said. ``They want to know but they don't always know where to find out. I'm glad I can help because it makes people think about the precious wildlife we have.''
Maia has given more than 150 hours of time since she began volunteering last summer. She's always there on Sunday afternoons, sometimes more often. This even though she lives close to 20 miles away from the museum and, at 14, she's still nearly two years away from getting a driver's license.
``I spend all of my time on the road,'' Maia's mother, Dawn, said with a sigh. She was not, however, complaining.
Dawn Rose is, hands down, the champion volunteer in the busy Rose family.
Much of the time the substitute teacher spends on the road is related to her own extensive volunteer work with the city schools. That's been true ever since she started volunteering in the school office when Maia was attending Rosemont Forest Elementary School seven years ago.
Her school volunteerism mushroomed over the years into ever increasing responsibility.
When Maia moved to Glenwood Elementary after it opened, Mom became active in the PTA and served as president. She is especially proud of the work she did with the late Capt. C.C. Hathaway, commander of the Fourth Police Precinct, in establishing the PAL program at Glenwood.
She continued to work in that popular after-school and summer program while adding another major challenge to her volunteer work.
For the past two years she has co-chaired ``Hearts and Hands Together,'' a major parenting conference sponsored by the Virginia Beach Council of PTAs and the Virginia Beach Public Schools Guidance Program.
Each conference required hundred of hours of work in lining up presenters for more than 30 workshops, getting out publicity and arranging for everything from meeting rooms to registrars.
``It's really the behind-the-scenes people who do all the work,'' she said, anxious that the many other volunteers who worked on the project be recognized.
Like Alan Pocta, Dawn Rose grew up with a parent who was committed to bettering her community. ``My mother was a teacher,'' she explained, ``and she taught us that you should always give more than you take.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos and color cover by CHARLIE MEADS
[color cover photo -two men with shovels]
Audrey Douglas-Cook and her daughters Monique, 12, Maya, 9, and
Megan, 5, will join with nearly 2,000 other Hampton Roads residents
in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life, a joyous, colorful,
around-the-clock fund-raiser.
Alan Pocta, left, his son Myles Pocta and Myles' sons Christopher,
Andrew and Travis work together as volunteers with the Virginia
Beach Habitat Enhancement Committee. One of their recent jobs was
replanting the banks along the manmade waterway that connects London
Bridge Creek with West Neck Creek.
Leaving home in separate directions are Dawn Rose, left, a member of
the council of PTAs, and her daughter Maia Rose, a Salem
eighth-grader who volunteers at the Virginia Marine Science Museum.
by CNB