Blue Sneaker Club helps community, has a blast

Making fleece blankets for women in crisis has made fast friends of the sneaker-clad volunteers in the Village at Deaton Creek.

In its inaugural year, the Blue Sneaker Club at the active-adult community near Braselton has harnessed the volunteer spirit of its 55-and-over women to help them bond with each other and the community.

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Kimberly Smith/ksmith@ajc.com

Each woman decorates her sneakers based on her life, interests and personality. Above, Janet Kreusch of Flowery Branch.

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KIMBERLY SMITH / ksmith@ajc.com

Donna Woodward (center, foreground) and Barbara Klein (in white belt) founded the Blue Sneaker Club at the Village at Deaton Creek near Braselton.

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The brainchild of Deaton Creek residents Donna Woodward and Barbara Klein, the service organization, more than 100 members strong, grew from a desire to help connect Deaton Creek newcomers with the surrounding community while helping them meet their neighbors.

Woodward, who moved to Deaton Creek from Greenville, S.C., arranged an organizational meeting last August in the ballroom of the community’s activity center. She and Klein, who moved there from Lawrenceville, expected to draw a few like-minded volunteers, but neither anticipated the surge of response the invitation drew.

“The ballroom was full,” Woodward said. “I never expected to get that many.”

Of the dozens of interest and activity groups coordinated by the Village at Deaton Creek, the Blue Sneaker Club is the largest.

“It’s a great way to meet people,” Woodward said. “I have people calling me all the time who are new.”

Georgians buck trend

Community volunteers in Georgia give some 60 or more hours each year to community causes, according to the Volunteering in America survey by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Information gathered by the corporation shows that people between ages 48 and 62 are more community-minded than people of the same ages in the past, said Siobhan Dugan, public affairs specialist.

“Baby boomers are volunteering at higher rates than people in that age group did in the past,” Dugan said. “That is really important because there are so many of them.”

Although the volunteering survey showed that nationally, retirees give less time to community service than other age groups, Georgia volunteer rates remain fairly steady through midlife and the median number of volunteer hours given actually rises. More than a quarter of all Georgians between ages 55 and 75 spend some portion of their lives in volunteer activities.

“Georgia seems to be bucking the trend and that’s a great thing,” Dugan said.

Many of the Blue Sneakers members have long been active in their communities.

Nancy Gaulette, who moved to Deaton Creek from Michigan, said she used to give time to her garden club and the Girl Scouts of America. When she moved to Georgia and heard about the Blue Sneakers, she eagerly signed on.

“When I saw we were going to go out and do community service, that’s what drew me here,” Gaulette said. “Once a volunteer, always a volunteer.”

Serious and social

The Blue Sneakers inaugurate new members with a sneaker-decoration session, where members create the signature footwear they sport at all club functions. Each member personalizes her sneakers with icons and decorations expressing something about her life, her interests or her personality.

Then, it’s time for service and social outings.

Last year, the Blue Sneakers made blankets for the Gateway Domestic Violence Center in Hall County and currently deliver for Meals on Wheels. This year, Woodward said, they plan to work shifts running the center so the director can take a week’s vacation.

Because many of the Deaton Creek volunteers travel frequently, the Blue Sneakers gather free hotel samples of soap and other personal toiletries for the domestic violence shelter. And they help coordinate other communitywide charitable activities, such as the Christmas can-a-thon.

But the group also holds activities that are purely social, helping them get acquainted with each other. So far, they have gone on a theater outing, held a scavenger hunt and enjoyed a program on home decorating with a professional decorator.

Such social occasions are as key to any group’s success as its more serious endeavors, Dugan said.

“People who volunteer tend to have a lot of social networks,” Dugan said. “The thing that keeps people from volunteering is not a lack of time, it’s a lack of social connection.”

Or as Blue Sneakers secretary Sandra Ferguson, a transplant from Florida, observed, “If you don’t have fun, you don’t want to do any of it.”

For more information about Blue Sneakers or to start a similar group, contact Donna Woodward at 770-965-6676 or Barbara Klein at 678-878-9079.