Many people enjoy volunteering their time to coach children’s sports teams, walk dogs at an animal shelter, serve as firefighters, or help with fundraisers like THON. Centre County has a wealth of volunteer opportunities for a wide range of interests and abilities. Local nonprofits focus on needs and causes such as housing, health, youth development, animals, arts and culture, education, the environment, and more.
Centre Gives, the online fundraiser, lists approximately 200 Centre County nonprofit organizations (centregives.org/organizations), ranging from very small organizations like Mountaintop Swimming Pool and East Penns Valley Library to large ones that touch even more lives, such as Centre Volunteers in Medicine and Centre County PAWS. Town&Gown’s “Nonprofits of Centre County” section (starting on page 49) in this issue highlights many nonprofits. Some organizations post available volunteer jobs on the Volunteer Centre County website, volunteercentrecounty.org/volunteering-opportunities.
Volunteering offers benefits to both the recipient and the person who donates their time. Three Centre County volunteers have agreed to share here why they volunteer and what it means to them.
An Unexpected Volunteer Job
Carson Bechdel of State College, a graphic designer and ad coordinator for Town&Gown, wasn’t thinking about volunteering until a friend asked him to help.
Gabi Cavell and her mother, Melissa Cavell, wanted to start a Girl Scouts troop for a young girl they knew. The Girl Scouts do not allow troops to be led by two members of the same family, but their third person couldn’t commit to doing it.
Bechdel says, “My friend Gabi was reaching out to everybody, and kind of half-jokingly was asking, Hey — you want to be a troop leader?
“I don’t think she was expecting me to take it as seriously as I did. … I had my hesitation. I am a man helping out with the Girl Scouts. It this even allowed? … But I found out that our local representative is a troop dad — that’s his job. I just wanted to be able to help out.”
Bechdel used to do a lot of volunteering with his grandfather for Toys for Tots and the Elks’ food baskets program. “It was something I realized I was missing. I didn’t have a lot of community involvement anymore.
“Now that I’m in it, this was definitely something I needed. It’s fun. It gets me out of a comfort zone that I was very much stuck in.”
He joined the troop three weeks after it started in late fall 2024. “It is one hour on Mondays. That’s something I can actually do to be helpful. … It kickstarts my week in a good way.”
Bechdel says they are a Daisy troop, meaning kindergarten and first grade, and the girls are all first-time Girl Scouts. “They certainly have a lot of energy. They are very imaginative. They have inside jokes that they think are hilarious.”
With his graphic design background from South Hills School of Business & Technology, he is considered the crafty one and enjoys leading the girls in making crafts. For example, they used finger puppets to work through how to do cookie sales.
“I’m really happy to talk about them and I’m proud of all the accomplishments that they do.”
He notes, “That’s the whole thing of Girl Scouts. It’s girl-led. We want to have them do as much leading as they can. They are the ones that make the decisions. We’re just there to help facilitate that.
“Obviously, at the age they’re at, we’ve got to come up with more of the activities — here’s what we’re doing tonight. But we give them a lot of agency in how they do that. We try to ask them, what do you want to do? How do you feel about it? I think that’s really important.
“You don’t always expect things to come your way, but sometimes you just have to roll with it,” Bechdel says about volunteering. “If you have the opportunity, take it.”
A Tradition of Helping Others
Renea Nichols grew up volunteering with her family, often through their church. “I was always doing something,” she says. “It just made sense.”
In 2004, she joined Penn State’s College of Communications as an associate teaching professor of advertising and public relations, and she uses those skills in her volunteer work. She also gets her students involved with the projects, continuing her parents’ tradition of leading by example.
Nichols’ background includes an undergraduate degree in journalism, a master’s in mass communication, and a doctorate in sociology. She has worked as a journalist, public relations specialist, substitute teacher, and court-appointed special advocate (mediator).
When she arrived in Centre County, Nichols joined the Children & Youth Services advisory board and Trinity Church, and volunteered with Interfaith Human Services.
In fall 2021, after a year of teaching remotely from Phoenix, Arizona, she returned home to Bellefonte and took her usual walk from Talleyrand Park to Union Cemetery. The grass had grown high and the graves were covered up. “Whoa! What is going on?”
She contacted Don Holderman at Bellefonte Borough, who said the cemetery was cared for by a nonprofit, the Bellefonte Cemetery Association, comprised at the time of two older gentlemen who needed help — Paul Badger and Jim Baldwin.
They met with Nichols and told her what they needed — volunteers and help getting the organization’s board back together.
“Being a journalist, and being in teaching public relations, I knew that the thing I needed to do was get a story about the problem, so I pitched the story,” Nichols says. The Centre Daily Times ran the story on Nov. 30 that year.
“You know, that cemetery is so amazing. It’s so historic and has so many amazing people. And I learned so much about Centre County and Bellefonte by working in that cemetery.”
Nichols also spoke directly to people in the neighborhood to ask them to help with work in the 19.6-acre cemetery. Many said yes.
“My goal was always … getting as many people as possible involved in the long-term upkeep of it.”
Nichols served as secretary of the Bellefonte Cemetery Association for three years. She also did public relations, fundraising, grant writing, setting up a Facebook page, social media posts, cutting grass, and cleaning headstones.
“But you know I loved it. I was in there sometimes six hours.” She loved walking in the cemetery with Baldwin, “who knew the history of everything. I loved the history. It was fascinating.”
She connected with the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, who were also cleaning headstones, and brought 25 of her students to clean headstones during the 2022 spring community cleanup day. Steve Snyder of Snyder and Co. Monuments learned about Union Cemetery from social media and volunteered to lift and reset several fallen headstones.
Now a new volunteer board is in place. Nichols’ current volunteer commitments include Pennsylvania Hallowed Grounds (preservation of African American graveyards), Eagle Iron Works and Curtin Village, Talleyrand Park Committee, the Bellefonte Historical and Cultural Association, and the preservation of the historic St. Paul’s AME Church in Bellefonte.
Nichols has received awards for her community service: the Barash Award for Human Service (2022), the Happy Valley Hospitality Award – Volunteer of the Year (2024), and the John H. Ziegler Historic Preservation Award for Support and Volunteerism (2025).
“You should always give back to the community,” Nichols says. “That’s one thing I preach to my students — get involved in the community.
“It gives you a purpose and you’re giving back. Just think of how much greater this world would be if we’d all do something.”
A Very Active Retirement
Jenny Lee of Boalsburg is a retired high school teacher of students who have multiple disabilities and currently serves as president of the board for The Arc of Centre County.
While in high school, Lee had an experience that set her on her life’s path. A good friend had a sister with intellectual disabilities and cerebral palsy and asked if Lee, who played the piano, could teach her sister.
“And I thought, this is pretty cool. I wonder if I could really teach people with multiple disabilities?
“That’s what got me interested. … I feel really blessed that at such an early age, I really hit into the track that I wanted to run on the rest of my life.”
Lee obtained an undergraduate degree in education and a master’s in education specializing in intellectual disabilities. She taught students with disabilities at the Capitol Intermediate Unit (Harrisburg) and State College Area High School.
“It really allows a huge amount of creativity when teaching at this level. … You look for the ability and, once you find that, you just put the key in the door, open it up, and say, wow — this is how this person learns.
“I often said I never worked a day in my life. We had a great time. We learned together.”
Lee taught for 33 years. “Once I stopped, I didn’t want to stop. It’s too much fun. I have a very active retirement. I volunteer at The Arc of Centre County.”
She also volunteers with the State College Area High School marching band to help direct its student members who have multiple disabilities.
Lee has served on The Arc’s board of directors on and off for more than 30 years and sits on three committees — Budget and Finance, Fund Development (fundraising), and Programming (monthly events for group home residents).
“A lot of individuals we serve are adults in our community and I had them in high school. So I have significant bonds with them,” Lee says. “I want people to see the person, not the label. We are a person-centered agency so the person comes first.”
The Arc has 10 group homes, and she creates monthly events for the residents to enjoy.
When Lee advocates with legislators, she often brings an individual served by The Arc programs to self-advocate by stating what they want and need. “I really think the legislators listen to them more than they listen to me, which is great.”
She also tries to include those individuals in fundraising events for The Arc.
“We teach skills for independent living,” she says. “That’s real important. We want to help people become the most independent version of themselves.”
She says an example is learning how to call CATA Ride to get themselves to a doctor appointment or get their hair done, which is a huge step in independence. “It is just thrilling to watch somebody become more independent and learn how to self-advocate.
“A lot of the skills we teach are job acquisition and job-related skills,” Lee says. The Arc helps individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities find competitive jobs that match their abilities and interests and that pay what anyone else would earn doing the work. Coaches work with the individuals on the job to help them learn how to do the job.
“Everybody needs to be needed, and having a job means that you are needed. And I think that’s critical in anyone’s life,” Lee says.
“Really, volunteering is a two-way street,” she says. “You’re giving to the individual but they also give back to you. And that makes me feel needed, too.” T&G
Karen Dabney is a freelance writer in State College who volunteers for several nonprofits.
