Mayoral Candidate Wants Volunteer Corps in St. Charles

St. Charles mayoral candidate John Rabchuk this week said that he wants to form an volunteer organization that would match resources with needs in the community.

Calling community volunteers as “a critical component” that earned St. Charles the title “No. 1 place for families” by Family Circle, Rabchuk said the STC Corps he would establish if elected would help match volunteer skills and availability with the respective needs.

“It is often difficult for someone interested in contributing to our volunteer infrastructure to find a place where their particular skills and available time are matched to a community need,” he wrote in a release. “This can include Eagle Scouts attempting to identify the community project required for their certification, National Honor Society high school students seeking to earn community service hours, or senior citizens seeking daily fulfillment without the pressures of employment.

“STC Corps will match local resources with local projects and needs,” he wrote. “STC Corps will be managed and operated entirely by volunteers, and provide a way to give back to our community. The city will provide basic oversight and resources such as office space, telephone and IT services, but no funding. It will serve as a public bulletin board of projects and tasks that can benefit our community.”

Such tasks might include riverbank cleanups, finding people who might need help maintaining their homes or neighborhood walkabouts with city officials to identify specific neighborhood issues, Rabchuk said. Other needs might include civic task forces and committees.

STC Corps would be a registry for individuals and groups looking to volunteer, cataloguing skills to match with needs. “Individuals with extra time due to retirement or changing employment situations, church youth groups and service groups such as the Key Club or the Leos are just a few examples of volunteers looking for an project for which STC Corps could serve as a coordinator,” he wrote.

Rabchuk also said he hopes that STC Corps will involve St. Charles youth in the community. “It is important to all of us that the youth of ‘the No. 1 city to raise families’ want to stay and raise their own families in the community that they have helped build,” he wrote.

“STC Corps will serve as an integral component of the civic infrastructure in St. Charles, providing benefits to both those who give and those that need, while helping to enhance the vibrancy and health of our community,” he continued.

He also pointed out that over the past 20 years, he has volunteered hundreds of man hours” to work on St. Charles civic boards and organizations, including as chairman of the 708 Mental Health Board, chairman of the committee that designed the plaza and public spaces for the First Street Development, treasurer of the River Corridor Foundation and as a volunteer for the American Cancer Society, Special Olympics and LivingWell Cancer Resource Center.