At just 60 years of age now, Ruth Dodds barely meets the former criteria for membership in the Foster Grandparent Volunteer Program.
However, just before she picked up a flier for the program at her church in 2009, the age requirement had been lowered to 55 - and students at the Gustavus Adolphus Learning Center have been the beneficiary of that stroke of good luck ever since.
''I'm a very active person in my way, and they told me they had just the place for me - G.A.,'' Ms. Dodds said. ''It's a unique world over there.''
A skilled musician, Ms. Dodds was teamed with the G.A. Learning Center's music teacher, Kathy Coyle. She quickly displayed her ability to know how she was needed in the classroom and how she could contribute her knowledge, said Linda Burton, the Foster Grandparent Program's coordinator.
''She soon expanded her role, using her music to calm an agitated student, adding piano instruction during class and after school, coaching choral music and even helping in the elementary reading program,'' Ms. Burton said. ''Ruth is very good at accepting students just as they are while coaching them into something more.''
For her willingness to go the extra mile, Ms. Dodds was honored this past week in Washington by the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging as a recipient of the 2011 MetLife Foundation Older Volunteers Enrich America Award. According to a news release from the organization, the Ms. Dodds was one of 26 individuals nationwide over the age of 50 honored for ''making exemplary contributions to their communities.''
The program aims to promote volunteering among older Americans nationwide, the release states.
Ms. Dodds said that playing music with people comes naturally for her - she is a private music instructor, plays for several churches and plays locally at other events regularly. She started a youth choir at the G.A. Learning Center that has sung at special events including Lutheran Social Services' recent 125th anniversary celebration, and she plays at Sunday services on the LSS campus.
She said she hasn't gone out of her way to try to win awards for her work at the G.A. Learning Center. However, when asked, she said what she believes may have impressed the award-selection committee the most may have been her creation of ''G.A. quilts'' for the students in the music classroom.
Saying she works with a lot of craft materials at home, Ms. Dodds came up with the idea to create quilts for students that each incorporate the letters ''G.A.'' somewhere in their design. She passed out a questionnaire, she said, to gauge student interests and determine what design of quilt each would most like to have.
''Some of the rooms are cold, and (the students) have thin blood - they don't move around a lot,'' Ms. Dodds said. ''The deal was that I would design it and do the basics, but they had to put the finishing touches on it - they had to put the knots in the quilt.''
When students outside the music classroom began requesting their own quilts, Ms. Dodds needed to expand the project to include them as well. While she said not all students in the school - which houses about 80 to 90 at any one given time - completed their projects and ended up with quilts, a large number were finished over the course of the school year.
''I was going to stop after Christmas, but all of a sudden I had this whole other group of kids in the homeroom, so I just kept doing it,'' Ms. Dodds said.
The Foster Grandparent Volunteer Program is sponsored by Lutheran Social Services and places volunteers with young people who need their help. While most are placed in classrooms and work extensively with only a few students, Ms. Dodds said, she welcomed the opportunity to have a whole schoolful of youth that looked to her for support - calling her ''Grandma Ruth.''
''In music, you get everybody,'' she said. ''Some, you get so you can sit down and have a conversation and do an activity with them. Some, you're just there if they need to blow off steam - which, sometimes, they do.''
In her two years at the G.A. Learning Center, Ms. Dodds said she has dressed as the Easter Bunny for the students, serenaded them with the accordion, and done countless other things to get them to enjoy their day and encourage them to have a positive outlook.
''Whatever works,'' she said.
And while she is proud to be honored with the national award, she said she is prouder to be able to accept it on behalf of the agencies she is representing.
''It's good for the Foster Grandparents, because their funding has been very much in jeopardy,'' she said. ''And it's good for G.A., anything they can get that gives them good PR in the area.
''If I happen to be the medium, that's just fine with me.''
