Last week, this editor was invited to attend a meeting of the Noonday Club, a longstanding volunteer group that’s been giving back to Ellenville for 102 years. Despite a low public profile, they’ve been responsible for a stretch of Adopt-a-Highway, Citizen of the Year, a scholarship program, and a number of events around the town and village.

The group was founded in 1923 by a group of local businessmen who met for lunch and to talk over ways to improve the character of the Ellenville/Wawarsing area. Over time, the ‘noonday’ concept fell out of the equation, so they now meet for dinner once a month – businesspeople, politicians, born-and-bred Ellenvillians, those who came here in adulthood. It’s a club of conscientious citizens looking to give back. Their current present is T. J. Briggs, who’s recently announced a run for county legislature.

The Noonday Club wants to grow, but finding the time and the attention make that difficult. That’s largely what our discussion centered around – how to communicate in an environment with few gathering spaces. Once upon a time, the business leaders of the village could be expected to be in the village with the same time to kill for lunchtime. Jobs, and life, don’t work like that anymore.

That same day, a representative of the Coalition of a Forward-Facing Ellenville stopped by, to talk about that group’s work. They’ve been moving along on very visible projects like dog parks and farmers’ markets, but some members also have concerns about their opportunities not getting through to everybody in the village. It’s a surprising thing for a village of this size to have two successful charitable organizations – and that’s not even counting the volunteer first responders!

Volunteerism in America was in a death spiral through much of the 21st century. Figures on what percentage of Americans volunteer their time dropped every year, hitting a low of 23.2% in 2021. A lot of articles and papers are ringing the alarm bell about volunteerism’s ‘all-time low.’ The Noonday Club, COFFE, the rescue squads, the hospital auxiliary, and even us at the paper – which counts on donations – have seen that pinch.

And it makes sense. On top of the unpalatable fact that nobody has time and nobody has money, this era has seen a lot of fundamental changes in how communities interact. Once upon a time, everybody saw each other at the post office or running errands. Now job opportunities are scattered far and wide, and one can live here and love it for years, but get everything they need delivered right to their door, meaning you won’t see them at the optometrist or the grocery store. This can make it harder for charitable groups to understand what work is needed where, and harder for the community to feel cohesive enough to engage in the work.

Hard times have been here for a while now, and it doesn’t seem like they’re going to let up anytime soon. That means two things: a) it’s harder to devote time and money to helping each other out, b) it’s even more important.

But two things are happening that give some hope. In New York, that decline has been turned around. Between 2021 and 2023, AmeriCorps logged a big leap in New York volunteers – from about 22% to about 26%. And everywhere, across the board, the number of people doing what’s called ‘informal helping’ – that is, work not done through an organization – has surged.

We want to thank Ellenville’s volunteers and helpers, and encourage more of its citizens to reach out and join in.