Beverlyn Zebrowski

Bothering to Help Those Others Neglect
Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly, Fall 2000
Beverlyn Zebrowski FP’97

‘If you see a need, you can’t wait for somebody else to take care of it,” says Beverlyn Zebrowski FP ’97, director of the Urban League Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) in Springfield, Massachusetts. When she heard that many elderly Beverlyn Zebrowskicitizens couldn’t clean their yards, she rallied volunteers, borrowed the city’s rakes and brooms and got the job done. “Most people couldn’t be bothered, but we have to bother,” Beverlyn says.

This kind of caring stems from her inner-city childhood in Tennessee. “I’ve been on the other side, so I know how inner-city people feel,” she says. Today she organizes nearly 300 enrolled senior volunteers who serve meals to the homeless, are “book buddies” for children, help in day-care classrooms, deliver meals to seniors and do other work for the sixty-five nonprofit agencies and institutions partnered with RSVP, which is funded by the Corporation for National Service. There are formal needs assessments, but many referrals come from neighbors. One such call—“Could you go grocery shopping for Mr. DeFlorio?”—brought a volunteer who also picked up his medication and arranged for city-sponsored elder services. Beverlyn recalls him saying, “‘My life changed because the person you sent really cares about me.’ Small things make a difference.”

Beverlyn came to MHC because of a small thing: Upward Bound intern Naomi Bryant ’74 told her about the College, and Beverlyn completed three years here in the 1970s before leaving to marry. Seventeen years later, she entered the Frances Perkins Program and prepared to fulfill her “special love for underserved populations.” As director of RSVP, Beverlyn raises funds, programs events, writes grants and oversees the staff. She says, “A lot of people are interested in changing thousands of lives. But to me, changing them one at a time is what it’s about.”

Yet many lives were improved this fall, when First Book distributed 10,000 free books to low-income kids. Beverlyn started the local chapter of this national group, and got $16,000 for her county. “If they have a love for books before they get to school, they stand a much better chance of making it,” she says.

“Whatever the need, I just ask, what can we do about it?” Beverlyn says. Hearing that one senior-living complex had few planned activities, she organized a program and brought it to the thrilled residents. Somebody warned Beverlyn beforehand, “Oh, you don’t want to go there.” She countered, “Well, somebody’s got to go; why not us?”

-- photo credit: Nancy Palmieri