Celebrate Berlin! Award Recipient Takes Volunteering in Stride
Helen deRito To Be Honored at Chamber Annual Meeting This Friday
For Helen deRito, it’s all about the children; her children, naturally, but others throughout the community of Berlin, as well.
“It’s important to me and my husband that our children know you have to give back to your
community. You can’t just sit back, be passive, and think ‘Oh, someone else will do it,’” says Helen.
This altruistic approach to life has served Helen and her community well over the years. And this year, it has earned her the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain’s 2007 Celebrate Berlin! community service award.
Helen will be honored and presented with her award this Friday evening at the Berlin Chamber of Commerce’s 54th Annual Meeting and Awards Banquet at the Hawthorne Inn. Festivities begin at 5:30 p.m., with dinner at 7 p.m. (Call 860-829-1033 for information.)
Helen is a New Britain native and daughter of Polish immigrants. She says her parents instilled in her an appreciation for hard work and helping others. Her father has passed on, but her mother, Stanislawa Supinski, lives with Helen’s family and is instrumental in allowing Helen to volunteer in the community.
“She is the reason I can do the work I do because she is always there for me to help with the children,” Helen says.
Helen and Anthony deRito have three children, Matthew, 12, Tommy, 11, and Christopher, 8. Much of the deRito’s volunteer work centers on their children’s activities: Helen is president of the Hubbard School PTO and a Cub Scout and Boy Scout volunteer. (Her husband is a Cub Master.) In addition to her PTO work, she volunteers at her children’s schools and leads a 5th grade reading group at Hubbard School as part of the Junior Great Books program.
It was Helen’s work with The Junior Woman’s Club of Berlin that triggered her nomination. Helen is the group’s treasurer and is involved in numerous Club programs. Her major Junior Woman’s Club project these days is work on the CHAD program, which provides child identification stickers to families for child car seats in the event of an auto accident.
“Webster’s Dictionary defines the word volunteer as one who enters into any service of his own free will. My definition of the word is a person who gives of themselves in deed, spirit and time. Helen deRito is this person,” says Karen Pagliaro of The Junior Woman’s Club of Berlin, who nominated Helen for the award.
“I’m shocked to receive this award,” says Helen. “I don’t think I do anything that’s special. There are a lot pf people who do a lot of great things in our town. It’s very nice – I am honored.”
Other nominees for this year’s Berlin award, all Berlin residents with extensive histories of community service, included Susan Brochu, Don Dellaquila, Deborah Muzio and John Tedesco.
Serving on the Selection Committee were co-chairs Mayor Adam Salina and Tom Veronesi, retired assistant principal of Willard School, former mayor and currently a member of the Town’s Economic Development Commission. Other members of the committee were: Joe Aresimowicz; Kate Fuechsel, Director, Berlin Chamber of Commerce; Manon-Lu Christ, Kensington resident and member of the Community Foundation board of directors; Donna Lasher, Kensington resident and board chair, Community Foundation; Robert Mayer, Managing Editor, Berlin Citizen; and Rose Angeli Wollman.
The Celebrate Berlin! Award is part of the Foundation’s four-town Celebrate Our Communities! community service awards program in Berlin, New Britain, Plainville and Southington. The Celebrate Awards have four objectives: To raise awareness of the importance of volunteerism and community service; to offer recognition to deserving volunteers who have made a difference in their communities; to provide financial support to local charities; and to raise awareness of the important work that the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain does in its four service communities.
As the recipient, Helen earns the right to designate a $2,500 grant award from the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain to a Berlin charity or community service organization of her choice. That selection will be announced at Friday’s presentation.
Established in 1941, the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain connects donors who care with causes that matter in Berlin, New Britain, Plainville and Southington. It does this by raising resources and developing partnerships that make a measurable improvement in the quality of life in each of these communities.
For more information on the Foundation, please call (860) 229-6018 or visit www.cfgnb.org.
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