News

THREE EMPLOYEES, THREE MILESTONES

Audrey Burns started working at Volunteers of America Delaware Valley as a temp.

That was 20 years ago.

She still works one day a week as a clerk in the accounting department at our Administration Building in Collingswood NJ.

Did we mention that Audrey Burns is 82?

“She is one of those rare individuals whose commitment to good causes is as wholehearted as it is lasting,” says Daniel L. Lombardo, President and CEO of Volunteers of America Delaware Valley.  “Audrey is an amazing woman who fights for what she believes in and will aggressively advocate for change when she sees injustice.  She will speak out to government officials, local elected politicians at the county, state and federal levels.  She is one of my heroes.  We’re blessed to have had her on our team for 20 years.”

A committed feminist (she’s a longtime member of the National Organization for Women) and an animal rights activist (she helped the effort to build a Camden County shelter), Burns may be best-known to South Jersey residents because of her regular letters-to-the-editor of the Courier-Post newspaper.

Her unabashedly liberal politics were formed “by my life experiences,” she says.
   
After growing up in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, Audrey moved to Oaklyn, NJ more than half a century ago. She earned a B.A. in education from West Chester University and worked as a “teaching principal” at a school in Gloucester Township she retired to raise her family. She and her husband, Alan, have three children and four grandchildren.

“After my kids had all left home, and my parents were gone, I was looking for something to keep myself busy,” Audrey says. “I applied to a temp organization and I started here as a temp. And then Dan asked me if I would be interested in working.”

She enjoys working at Volunteers of America Delaware Valley “because of the social issues…especially the issue of inequality in our society” that the agency deals with.

Her work “is a constant reminder of inequality in our society, and it’s humbling. It’s humbling to be aware of your own, really unearned advantages,” Audrey says.

Audrey has no plans to retire. “I’m going to keep working as long as I can,” she says.

Charllene Mapp has worked as a case manager at Hope Hall in Camden, NJ since May, 2008.

She is just three credits away from earning a Master’s degree in Social Work from Rutgers University in Camden.

“I want to increase my knowledge and better serve my clients. I want to put the theory into practice,” says Charllene, who earned a B.S. in social work from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. “The undergraduate degree is a foundation gives you a foundation.”

Pursuing a graduate degree while working full time “is difficult,” she continues. “I don’t know how I did it. I just did it. It’s a difficult program. But I had a lot of support from my husband, Douglas, who’s a professional musician and a professor at Rowan University.”

 Does she have any advice for someone planning a similar undertaking?

“The first thing I would say is, set some goals,” Charllene says. “Make sure you have that commitment.”

Oscar Rueda joined Volunteers of America Delaware Valley in 2006 as a case manager at what is now the Community Resource Center in Camden NJ. He subsequently became a tenant resource counselor in the support services program at Station House, in Philadelphia, before coming to our Administration Building as database manager in September 2008.

 He recently completed a Drexel University master’s degree program in library and information science.

“My new position requires the skills I was learning at Drexel. It was just a perfect fit,” Oscar says. “I learned how to develop a database from conception – to actually create it.

“I just like managing and storing information, making it accessible, tailoring it to the user’s needs, and using technology to facilitate that,” he adds.