A Clinton County community member and student received the title of “Volunteer of the Year” from the Friends of the Frankfort Community Public Library for her dedicated volunteer efforts at the Frankfort Community Public Library over the past year.
Michaela Jacobs was presented with the award during the Friends Annual Meeting on Friday, which was held amidst the celebrations and festivities of the “Barns and Blooms” events and exhibit currently on display at the library throughout May. Jacobs was honored for her dedication to the library and her passion for serving the community of Clinton County. Jacobs expressed her feelings after receiving the award, stating that she is honored to be chosen.
“I’m honored to receive this award,” Jacobs said. “I started out tutoring with the literacy program five years ago. It started out as just a passion for reading and wanting to help other youth, but it turned into something more than that. It’s just been a very influential part of my life.”
Jacobs continued to express how she intends to continue her volunteer work, possibly within the Indiana University campus, as she hosts a passion for helping and serving the community around her regardless of the strenuous courses she may take as a result of her aspirations to continue helping others by pursuing medicine.
“I plan on continuing with volunteer work, but that might be kind of difficult with college, but that’s something I want to do more of,” Jacobs said. “It has always been a passion of mine, and it’s something that I want to continue on with my life.”
Rachel Milburn acted as the nominator for Jacobs for the award, and she expressed that Jacobs’ consistency and dedication to the mission of the library helped her solidify her nomination and led to Jacobs’ consideration and eventual receipt of the award.
“I nominated Michaela because she started working as a student herself with other students, and she was somebody that was consistent with volunteering and working with other kids, and I saw consistency from her that I don’t always see with adults, and she was so young,” Milburn said. “She continued that all the way through until we got to COVID. I had a lot of teens who were volunteering at that time, and some of them came back and some didn’t. Michaela was one of the ones who returned and got right back to work as soon as she was able to get back to work.”
Milburn continued to comment on the reasoning behind Jacobs’ nomination for the award, stating that her willingness to strive for excellence within a leadership role was another driving factor that led to her eventual selection as the Volunteer of the Year.
“She continued to consistently help other kids, and then when we needed a President for the Teen Advisory Board, she was willing to step into that and take a leadership role with her peers,” Milburn said. “I really wanted and hoped to see her recognized before she went on to college because I feel like she was a great example to everybody in the community, old and young. She’s in sports all year, she’s always taking honors classes, she’s very involved in school and on top of that, she was willing to take on an exceptional amount of volunteer work. I think that’s a great example to everybody in the community that there’s always something you can do to help other people.”
Melissa Jacobs, Michaela Jacobs’ mother, expressed her outlook on the library and her daughter’s volunteering for the organization as she believes the library has given back to their family as much as they have given to the library.
“From preschool to when Clinton Central didn’t have art in the elementary (for one year), we came here for art,” Jacobs said. “We’ve done the music series. She was in a play here. She’s done the theater stuff here. All through school and all through life, we’ve utilized this library, and we’re very lucky to have it here.”
Friends of the Frankfort Community Public Library President Debby Niemesh, who recently gave up her position for election during the Friends meeting on Friday, expressed that awarding the Volunteer of the Year every year showcases the outstanding work conducted by adults and young adults throughout the library, and she hopes that the encouragement of receiving the award will continue to push the recipients every year to continue their work to better the community.
“We’ve had adults that have been volunteering at the library for 30-some years, and then you have a young person that is just coming up,” Niemesh said. “When you have someone young, you want to encourage them to keep going and continue to volunteer throughout their life.”
Jacobs was selected as the Volunteer of the Year based on Milburn’s nomination, time and effort of volunteer work, the manner of the volunteer work, the length of time that had been implemented and more amongst the Friends.
