Adrienne’s Story

Everyone has different reasons for volunteering and for choosing the kind of volunteer work they do. For Adrienne Betty, it was a little boy called Andrew.

As an elementary school principal in Calgary, Adrienne had worked closely with Andrew, who was struggling to manage his anger. It turned out that Andrew’s anger stemmed from witnessing his father’s brutal abuse of his mother and his inability to stop the abuse. Through her work with Andrew, Adrienne became very fond of him and his mom.

So when Adrienne saw the ad in a Victoria magazine looking for volunteer members of the Victoria Women’s Transition House Society Board of Directors, it all came together. Having just retired to her hometown of Victoria after 35 years away, she was looking for volunteer work that would build on the skills and experience acquired in her career and take them a step further. Clearly, Transition House was a good fit. Adrienne joined the Board in 2002, and in September 2009 completed a six-year commitment on the Board, including four years as co-chair.

“There are lots of wonderful ways to volunteer at Transition House,” Adrienne says, “but being on the Board has worked really well for me.” She particularly enjoys the “situational” nature of Board work - working hard for a period of time on a particular project, and then moving on the next. “It’s challenging, interesting, engaging, stimulating - and very rewarding,” she says. “I have learned so much from the Executive Director, her leadership team, the staff and my Board colleagues.”

For action-oriented people, like herself and many of her fellow Board members, stepping back from hands-on action to the arms-length governance role can sometimes require an adjustment, but the work is powerful in its own way: “Women working with women, women supporting women, and building on the strengths of the women on the Board to make decisions that are in the best interest of the women we serve.”

But whether you take Crisis Line calls, or work with the counsellors in a support group, or shop for groceries for the Shelter, doing volunteer work for Transition House will make a difference, because Transition House makes a difference.

“By providing programs and support in a caring, nurturing environment,” Adrienne says, “and a model that brings about change from within rather than imposing it, Transition House helps women make changes in their lives, encouraging them to see a path that they can start moving along, step by step or leap by leap.”

In turn, the courage to take those steps and leaps inspires everyone involved, Adrienne adds as Andrew and his mom inspired her. “The women’s stories of survival and their commitment to making better lives for their children and themselves are profoundly moving and inspirational.”