Funai receives governor's volunteer award

Last Friday was a big day for long-time Sisters resident Norma Funai. She and her husband, Arnold, traveled to Salem where they met their daughter Carole and then proceeded to the Salem Conference Center, where Norma was presented the governor's "2009 Outstanding Lifetime Volunteer Achievement Regional Award."

Right after retiring as a grade-school teacher in the Bay Area several years ago, Funai immediately stepped in as an environmental volunteer, leading children on nature field trips - and she has never looked back.

It was the Deschutes Land Trust that nominated Norma for the governor's award, which resulted in accolades coming in from all directions.

Carol Wall, tour leader for the land trust, said, "I first met Norma about 10 years ago on one of her many tours for the Deschutes Land Trust, this one at Camp Polk Meadow Preserve... a wonderful walk through the meadow looking for birds and exploring different areas. While the walk was advertised as a bird walk, it was so much more... By this (volunteer) work for the land trust, she has literally built a community of friends and supporters for protecting and preserving critical habitat in Central Oregon... She is a wonderful role model and mentor..."

It isn't just the land trust that enjoys Funai's vitality and knowledge as a volunteer. Cal Allen, a member of the land trust's board of directors (and another long-time Sisters resident who has volunteered thousands of hours in community projects) summed up Funai's volunteer activities in a letter to the nominating committee:

"While Norma's first love is her (over 10 years of) work with the land trust, she also finds time to volunteer for other community groups, like the Sisters Garden Club and Friends of the Sisters Library... she contributed many hours working for passage of the Deschutes Public Library District's tax base, and collaborated with a group of women who published and sold a Sisters cookbook that raised over $75,000 for the (new Sisters) library. I cherish her as a friend and mentor for how to contribute and to truly enjoy being a volunteer."

When Funai arrived home after looking back on her thousands of hours of volunteering over the years, and receiving the governor's lifetime volunteer award, she said, "I am very humbled and feel so lucky to have the energy to interact with the public, sharing how all things on our planet are interconnected. "And," she added with a big grin, "especially teaching children. They're so close to the ground, they don't miss a thing."