(March 31, 2009) - Bart and Donna Bovee are the first couple to be honored with the Celebrate! Award for community service in the four years since it’s been given out in Berlin. Their involvement started small – with a little coaching for Bart and school volunteering for Donna – and has evolved into a partnership that benefits children throughout Berlin.
“Bart was into coaching and sports; I was into helping at school and one way or another we pulled each other along by saying, ‘Come on, you have to help me out here!,’” recalls Donna.
As involved parents over the past 18 years, Bart and Donna’s capacity for leadership and hands-on participation has benefited many of the town’s youth organizations, including the Berlin PAC, which they set up to save school sports and after-school programs threatened with cancellation due to proposed budget reductions; Pay to Play, which brings local residents together to raise money for families impacted by illness, fire or other difficult circumstances; and contributing funds and countless hours to Berlin Little League, Berlin Basketball Association, Berlin High School Boosters, Berlin Girls Basketball and Berlin High School Softball. They’ve also been involved in Girl Scouts and religious organization stewardship.
The Bovee’s are “Shining examples of how to be agents of change and improvement rather than sideline critics and bystanders,” wrote Irene Young, a long-time fellow volunteer and friend who nominated them for the honor. The Bovee children, teens Courtney and Kaitlyn, have taken their parents’ enthusiasm for volunteering to heart, too. It just goes with the territory.
“This is just our family’s way of life,” explains Donna. “My parents always asked me and my siblings to help out, and we do the same thing with our kids. We have to push them a little and sometimes they grumble but they always come around and enjoy it.”
Right now the Bovee’s dining room is spilling over with Gatorade bottles, part of a project for the Berlin High School’s All-Night Graduation Program. Donna is co-chairing the committee. In fact, the Community Foundation’s $2,500 grant will be given to the Graduation Program to help fund the alcohol-free party for several years to come.
Bart says he finds himself saying “yes” when asked for help and then figuring out how to get it all done later. He’s taught himself to be more organized and tends to multitask – letting his job and volunteer work overlap when needed: “It sounds crazy but it’s really all okay,” he says. It’s not as if Bart and Donna aren’t busy with careers – Bart is partner in the Berlin civil engineering and land surveying firm, MBA Engineering, and Donna is vice president/treasurer of a Brookfield semiconductor manufacturer, Phototronics, Inc. So how do they do it all?
“We give ourselves permission to let some things go,” says Donna with a chuckle. “Bart, can you remember the last time we cleaned the house?’ (He can’t.) “Bart and I are really partners - we couldn’t do all this on our own.”
The Bovees were one of nine Berlin couples or individuals nominated for the 2009 Celebrate! Berlin award. The other nominees included: Edward Arbour, Tina Doyle, Donald Geschimsky, Richard Hudson, C. Roger Moss, Elaine Pavasaris, Anne Salgado and Leonard Tubbs.
“As always, we had a great field of nominees this year, and are so pleased to honor the Mercures as our nominees. Their long and continued service to a need that has meant so much to their family is a win-win for us all,” said Jim Williamson, president of the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain.