Dedicated Volunteers Key to Center’s Success

The University of Michigan Women’s Health Resource Center opened in 1995 with two part-time employees and a committed group of volunteers. The staff has grown, but volunteers are still critical to the center’s work of providing free information, sound advice, and enthusiastic encouragement about women’s health issues.

Currently, volunteers help staff the center 35 hours a week. Debbi Smith, Women’s Health Resource Center Coordinator, says, “The day-to-day work of the Women’s Health Resource Center is completely dependent upon volunteers. They are an amazingly committed group of women.”

That commitment is quite evident in two volunteers who have given their time for the entire 10 years the center has been in existence. Ellen Goldberg and Nancy Gould have helped the center in many ways. Not only did they dedicate time to serving on the original Community Advisory Board, which guided the creation of the Women’s Health Resource Center, they also continued to volunteer their time each week.

Both women will be honored in February when the center celebrates its 10-year anniversary. A move out of state is bringing Goldberg’s decade of service to an end. She says, “I’ll miss the camaraderie I’ve had with the students and women involved with the Women’s Health Resource Center. They’ve been hard-working, intelligent, and dedicated to the future of women’s health.”

Goldberg and Gould are admired for all of those attributes and more in their long history with the Women’s Health Resource Center. Thank you to Goldberg, Gould, and all of the wonderful staff and volunteers who made it possible to provide information to women for 10 years.

If you would like more information about volunteer opportunities supporting the U-M Women’s Health Resource Center, please call (734) 936-8886.