By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
There was no better time than April 8 for the Baldwinsville Volunteer Center to celebrate its 2016 Outstanding Volunteer Man and Woman of the Year, as April is National Volunteer Month. Harlow Kisselstein and Doris Hildebrandt accepted their awards in a banquet over the weekend at Pasta’s on the Green.
“I think half the Presbyterian Church is here,” Hildebrandt said as she surveyed the crowd before the banquet. “I’m really pleased they’re here.”
The First Presbyterian Church of Baldwinsville is just one of many organizations on Hildebrandt’s resume. Others include the Baldwinsville Christmas Bureau, Travelers’ Club, Philanthropic Educational Organization (PEO) and the McHarrie Life Foundation. Hildebrandt has served meals at Syracuse Home and has been a McHarrie Life Foundation board member. The “superwoman,” as Van Buren Deputy Supervisor Pat Dickman called her, has 62 years of community service under her belt.
“I have enjoyed every minute of doing this,” Hildebrandt said.
While she said it was exciting to be honored, Hildebrandt said she doesn’t need recognition. She said she feels she can give back to the community that has given her so much.
“I like to be a silent volunteer,” she said. “If there’s a need and I see it, I’ll do it. … It’s important to give everybody that needs it a boost.”
John Tulloch said he has been friends with Hildebrandt since 1954, when both of their families moved to Baldwinsville.
“She’s well-deserving,” Tulloch said of Hildebrandt’s award. “It’s not just this year — it’s over the years.”
Another friend, Joan Kingsley, recalled that Hildebrandt delivered food to Kingsley’s aunt and uncle when they were at Syracuse Home.
“She’s always helping somebody,” Kingsley said. “If I need a friend on the phone, I can call her and she’ll calm me down.”
Margaret Sollish, whose husband George is Hildebrandt’s cousin once removed, said, “Doris is one of my absolute favorite people.”
Sollish shared a story about Hildebrandt pitching in during her working days at Seneca Savings. Hildebrandt was the secretary of Lynus Duger, who was then vice president of the bank.
“When he got sick with leukemia … she did his job for a year to keep his place for him,” Sollish said.
If one were to play a game of “six degrees” with Doris Hildebrandt and Harlow Kisselstein, Lynus Duger would be the link. Kisselstein said Duger invited him to join the Baldwinsville Rotary Club, of which Kisselstein is still a part.
“They do a lot of good in the community,” Kisselstein said of the Rotary.
With his 2016 honor, Kisselstein is carrying on a family tradition of giving back to the community. His wife, Lysander Town Historian Bonnie Kisselstein, was named Woman of the Year in 2004, and her father, Albert Palmer, was the inaugural honoree in 1961.
Harlow Kisselstein said his volunteer career was inspired by both his father-in-law and his mother-in-law, Aileen.
“I had the sweetest mother-in-law you’d ever want to know,” he said.
Bonnie and Harlow Kisselstein are partners in volunteering. Harlow was the first president of McHarrie’s Legacy, which helps share the Kisselsteins’ love of Baldwinsville history with their community.
“We both love history. We’ve always lived in old houses,” Harlow Kisselstein said.
Along with PAC-B videographer Joe Loffredo (another past Man of the Year), the Kisselsteins produced a video walking tour of the Oswego-Oneida National Historic Register District. Harlow Kisselstein spearheaded the years-long process of getting the district named to the National Historic Register.
Over the years, the Kisselstein family hosted about a dozen foreign exchange students, one of whom was a Russian girl named Anna Pkhrikian. When Anna was diagnosed with leukemia, Harlow Kisselstein formed a group called “Friends of Anna” to raise money for her treatment and advocated for Anna with the federal government to bring her brother, Arik, to the United States to donate bone marrow to his sister. Anna lived with the Kisselsteins on and off for 12 years, attending Onondaga Community College and Syracuse University.
“Without this community’s support, Anna would not have been able to extend her life for approximately 15 more years. She was even able to obtain a job in foreign relations,” 2015 Woman of the Year Sandy Baker said in her introduction of Harlow Kisselstein.
Baker knows Kisselstein through the Baldwinsville Theatre Guild. Good volunteers, Baker said, “do things behind the scenes.”
“They aren’t looking for the spotlight,” she said, “unless they’re on stage for the Baldwinsville Theatre Guild.”
Kisselstein said he helps find props and create costumes for the BTG and eventually dipped his toe into acting.
“You meet a lot of interesting people,” he said of the theater community.
For BTG’s 75th anniversary celebration, Kisselstein compiled a display of costumes and “odds and ends” at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse Museum.
Baldwinsville Mayor Dick Clarke said Harlow Kisselstein is “all around the village” in his various volunteer pursuits.
“He’s got a love for the village, a keen sense of pride in the things he’s done,” Clarke said.
Clarke noted that National Volunteer Week, April 23 through 29, is a perfect time to pitch in. He said the Baldwinsville community relies on volunteers, the population of which is aging and in short supply.
“We can’t survive without volunteers,” he said. “Volunteers are the lifeblood of any small community — all communities, I guess.”
Clarke acknowledged that many people are busy with work or shuttling their children to and from their various activities, but he encouraged people to find time in their schedules to volunteer, especially if they are newly retired.
“I hope that people would realize if they’re sitting around during the week trying to find their purpose, we can help them find it,” he said.
The Baldwinsville Volunteer Center can help match volunteers with opportunities that speak to their skills and interests. A list of current volunteer opportunities in the B’ville area can be found at bvillevolunteers.org/volunteer.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to do it,” he said. “You just need a heart.”
