Meet Our Volunteers

Edward Schrock Volunteer of the Year Award Winners

2023 Volunteer of the Year: Tom Callanen

Tom Callanen became a volunteer driver in 2017 and during his 6.5 years has driven 209 rides totaling 4000 miles. Tom has held numerous positions for our center including Board Chair, Audit Chair, Ride Coordinator, Newsletter Editor, and member of the Executive Director Search Committee. He has single-handedly recruited dozens of volunteers with his personal approach, talking directly to each to effectively explain our mission while sharing his very contagious passion for this work. It’s evidently very hard to say ‘no’ to Tom! Another quote from Betty, about Tom, “The stories of his recruitment of volunteers, his restructuring of committees, his enticing of volunteers to serve in leadership roles, and the sharing of his expertise, skills, and time have been impressive.”

2022 Volunteer of the Year: Connie Van Zandt

Connie Van Zandt is recognized for selflessly providing 39 of our clients with 193 rides during the 2022 year, driving over 3,300 miles and devoting over 300 hours of her time. Since joining the Center in the summer of 2021, she has been our most active driver. Inspired by her parents’ selfless work helping others, Connie says “I have the time, a car, and a license — and I love it!”

2021 Volunteer of the Year: Betty Douglass

The Shepherd’s Center of McLean-Arlington-Falls Church is pleased to announce Betty Douglass as its 2021 volunteer of the year. Betty began driving for the Center in 2013 and remains an active driver today. Over the years, she has performed in many roles in the organization including Secretary and Chair of the Board of Directors, Ride Coordinator, Volunteer Appreciation Committee member, and Nominations Committee Chair. Although Betty stepped down from the Board at the end of 2020, in 2021 alone she drove over 432 miles providing 82 rides. And, in 2022 she continues to be among the “high drivers”.

Betty has lived in northern Virginia since her family moved from Texas when she was a teen. Beginning in 1980 she and her husband Bruce made Falls Church their permanent residence. Betty received an undergraduate degree from William and Mary followed by a masters in sociology from Duke University. Betty for almost 20 years held the position of Executive Director for the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education at Johns Hopkins University. She subsequently served for 11 years as the Director of Admissions in the Graduate School at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. This was followed by a special project for American University until her retirement in 2011, permitting her to devote more time volunteering at her church, Lewinsville Presbyterian in McLean.

In 2013 Betty volunteered her services to the Shepherd’s Center and has worked tirelessly to help the organization provide transportation and other services to area older adults. As Board Chair she provided strong leadership during the challenges of the pandemic to assure services were continued. We are grateful to Betty for her continued dedication to our organization and for her many contributions. In between the many hours Betty continues to devote each week to the Center, we hope she and her husband are reserving time to enjoy their son and daughter, each of whom has two children – all live in the area. Our warm wishes and congratulations Betty!

2020 Volunteer of the Year: Jerry Welch

Jerry became a volunteer with the Shepherd’s Center in the spring of 2019. He began as and continues to actively serve as a driver – in 2020 alone he provided over 200 rides. Jerry has also taken on the role of serving as a Ride Coordinator, a most rewarding task as he matches client requests with drivers. When drivers are not available Jerry often takes them, and has frequently picked up last-minute requests on occasions when clients need support for appointments scheduled on short notice.

Jerry was born and raised in Geneva, New York, a small city located at the northern tip of Seneca Lake. After high school, he went to a prep school run by the Marine Corps that enabled him to attend the Naval Academy. He spent six years in the Navy, including a year in Viet Nam.

Following this, Jerry worked for several firms dealing with software sales and support before starting his own company in 1991. He retired in 2019. He enjoys squash, tennis, basketball, and golf. He has two adult sons and three grandchildren. And, he particularly enjoys spending time with his three younger brothers.

2019 Volunteer of the Year: Stew Lingley

The Shepherd’s Center has selected Stew Lingley for the Center’s 2019 Ed Schrock Volunteer of the Year Award. He joined the Center in 2013 as a volunteer driver, providing 68 rides last year. Stew has been a resident of Northern Virginia since the age of two, except for his time in the Navy and while away at school. He attended St. Johns College High School in Washington, DC, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is basically a naval engineer and was associated with the Navy one way or another most of his working life.

Stew has been a volunteer with the SHARE-of-McLean furniture program for many years. In January 2013, he expanded his volunteer efforts with SHARE and joined SCMAFC. His community involvement also has included since 2008 service as a Fairfax County election official. Stew is married, has three daughters, and six grandchildren.

2018 Volunteers of the Year: Mark Turco and Bob Schulze

Mark Turco, a native of St. Louis, attended college in NYC and moved to DC following graduation. After 5 years of what he calls “adventures and misadventures” here and abroad, Mark started law school at night while working during the day. He subsequently practiced law for a DC firm until retiring in 2017. During his career he handled cases around the US and enjoyed spending extended periods of time in locales like Little Rock, Houston, San Francisco and Chicago. He has resided in McLean since 1987. His wife, Elisabeth, is a classically-trained musician from Hungary who is a music director at a Catholic church and a private piano instructor. Mark would enjoy revisiting SE Asia with her and seeing the St. Louis Cardinals appear in another World Series or two during his lifetime.

Bob Schulze graduated from the Naval Academy in 1952 and then served a 26-year career as a Navy pilot. He logged 4,500 hours in Lockheed Neptune and Orion land-based patrol aircraft, flying missions in the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Spain, Bermuda, and Newfoundland. Following his government career, Bob worked as a consultant to the Navy and then for the Minerals Management Service, an organization that monitors the use of oil spill products. His 1991 update of an initial 1987 catalog of products continues to be updated and used by governments and state agencies involved in oil spill response operations.

Bob is married to Mimi Gronlund, also known well to many Center volunteers. They met and married 10 years ago following the deaths of their spouses and they live in McLean. Together they have seven daughters and ten grandchildren. Bob’s grandson is a Marine who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and his granddaughter is an Air Force Major serving in the nurse corps.

2017 Volunteer of the Year: Mary Lee

Mary is one of our friendly visitors. During over 100 visits in 2017 she spent more than 200 hours with one client. In addition to visiting, she has become a friend, helping this client with shopping, cleaning out closets, and bringing healthy food. Our client feels more secure now because she knows she can call on Mary if she has a need for assistance other than a ride. We want to thank Mary and commend her for her selflessness and dedication to enriching the life of another.

2016 Volunteer of the Year: Sofia Rontaler

Our 2016 Volunteer of the Year is Sofia Rontaler. Sofia received a gift card to a local Safeway grocery store after providing 109 rides last year to a wide variety of our clients. She has been a driver for two and a half years. Sofia takes a personal interest in each person she works with and keeps in touch with many of them and even runs errands for some of them. Her dedication to the ideals that Shepherd’s Center espouses made her an obvious choice for the award.

Born in England to Polish immigrants after WWII, Sofia came to the US when she was 3 years old. Sofia became widowed after 23 years of marriage and ran a consignment shop in Vienna until 2014. Retirement provided Sofia with time to volunteer and she found “the flexibility to sign up for ride appointments that work with my schedule” was appealing and she enjoys “the chance to strike up a conversation” as she drives her clients to their appointments.

“Finding out about the Shepherd’s Center has been to me not a coincidence but a God incident. It can be so easy to get caught up in one’s own life, but it is important to reach out and help others.” – Sofia Rontaler

We are privileged to have volunteers like Sofia in our organization.

2015 Volunteer of the Year: Nancy Murray

Congratulations to Nancy Murray who was declared our Volunteer of the Year for 2015. Nancy took 159 rides. She was awarded a gift certificate to Safeway for gas or groceries. When asked what motivated her to devote so much of her time serving our clients she said “I like to drive for the Shepherd’s Center because it helps the riders maintain their independence when they are no longer able to drive. I had surgery ten years ago and couldn’t drive for about a year afterwards so I know how important that can be! I also thoroughly enjoy getting to know the people who ride with me. They always brighten my day and I really enjoy talking to them.”

Nancy is from Midland, Michigan, graduated from St Marys College of Notre Dame, Indiana and then completed her MBA at Va. Tech in Northern Virginia. She and her husband have one daughter who recently graduated from Purdue. After retiring from Verizon in 2009 Nancy is pursuing her quest to visit all 50 states with only 3 left to go.

2014 Volunteer of the Year: Kate Jones

Kate Jones, who began volunteering with the Shepherd’s Center on November 19, 2013, is the Shepherd’s Center of McLean-Arlington-Falls Church 2014 Volunteer of the Year. During that period she provided 108 medical rides for our seniors showing the true spirit of serving people unable to get to and from their medical appointments.

Kate, a native of Englewood, New Jersey, a retired pediatric nurse, has lived in McLean for 34 years. She was a stay-at home mom when her children were young and then worked 14 years in school clinics for the Fairfax County Health Department, the majority of that time serving at Langley High School in McLean. She retired from that position in 2005.

When she is not volunteering for the Shepherd’s Center, she loves to swim, bake and spend time with her family. Kate and her husband, Gordon, have three children, Sarah, Dylan and Ethan. She also has two grandsons, Caleb and Adam.

The 2017 SCMAFC Board of Directors honored Ed Schrock on January 29, 2018, marking his retirement from the leadership of this Shepherd’s Center chapter. Ed was presented a scrapbook with tributes from each of the 2017 Board members and several previous Board members. It was announced by Tom Eversole, SCMAFC Executive Director, that the annual award given to an outstanding volunteer is being named in honor of Ed—the Edward Schrock Volunteer of the Year Award. In addition, Ed was informed that he has been designated Executive Director Emeritus by the Board.

Edward “Ed” Schrock founded the Shepherd’s Center of McLean-Arlington-Falls Church (SCMAFC) in 2006, and served as its Executive Director for over a decade. Ed retired from the Navy in 1988 and worked as an investment broker at Kidder Peabody. He was elected to the Virginia Senate where he served from 1996 to 2001. He then was elected to represent the Second Congressional district of Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives. Upon moving to McLean, Ed looked for a way to help those in his community and began giving rides to seniors who needed help getting to their doctors. In the course of giving them rides, he grew close to them and realized that there had to be many people (especially seniors) who needed that kind of help. After investigating the Shepherd’s Center of Oakton -Vienna, he set up a Shepherd’s Center to service McLean, Arlington and Falls Church in 2006 operating with a handful of volunteers. In 2013 SCMAFC was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) organization and has grown to provide roughly 2,000 rides a year by volunteers. The personal relationships between riders and drivers make Shepherd’s Center special since many of the seniors do not have family nearby. “That’s where we fill the bill,” says Ed. “I don’t know who gets more out of it – riders or drivers.” Ed Schrock leaves a strong, all-volunteer organization behind to continue his original objective of helping seniors live their lives with dignity.

If you think you may be interested in volunteering, please fill out the Volunteer Form or call us at 703-506-2199 and leave a message for our volunteer coordinators.

Volunteer Form