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Photos by Sarah Finnegan.
Vestavia Sunrise Rotary members donate money to “Feed the Pig” to celebrate community achievements.
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Photos by Sarah Finnegan.
Steve Ammons leads a Rotary meeting.
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Photos by Sarah Finnegan.
A new Vestavia Sunrise Rotary member is pinned during a July 13 meeting at Vestavia Hills City Hall.
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Photos by Sarah Finnegan.
Cahaba Heights Community Foundation member Robert DeBuys Facebook Lives the beginning of the group’s Christmas in July event on July 21 at Meadowlawn Park. The CHCF Facebook page has almost 1,200 members, which Brown said is sizable compared to the population of the community.
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Photos by Sarah Finnegan.
It’s 6:45 on a Thursday morning, and while the rest of City Hall is quiet, the executive conference room is alive with conversation.
Two or three times a month, the Vestavia Hills Sunrise Rotary meets for breakfast to discuss club business, listen to a speaker or plan one of its community service projects.
“I think there is a misconception that it’s just a bunch of old guys that meet and wear funny hats and have secret handshakes or whatever,” said current club president and former city councilor Steve Ammons, who has been involved in Rotary for a little more than a decade.
Ammons said Sunrise club members range in age from 40 to 83 and that the group is active despite being small.
Rotary International, like other formal civic engagement and service groups, has faced hard questions about memberships. During the past decade, total Rotary membership worldwide has hovered around 1.2 million, seeing not only stagnation but also decline in many areas.
Civitan International, which was founded in Birmingham, has also seen declining membership numbers during the past few decades, particularly in North America.
But the Pew Research Center reported after a 2012 study that roughly 72 percent of Americans have done at least one activity that is considered an act of community engagement, whether that be contacting a local government official about a municipal issue, volunteering at a community event or engaging online by posting about issues on social media.
And as communities change, engagement in those communities changes as well.
Staying engaged
Ammons said he decided to join Rotary after watching his father’s involvement throughout his life.
“I joined because he had been a part of Rotary. His whole outlook on life is ‘How can he give back, how can he be of help or service to somebody?’” Ammons said.
The Rotary motto is “Service Above Self,” and Ammons said being a part of a group focused on serving the community was extremely important when he and his father started the Sunrise club in 2005, and it will be a major part of his term as club president.
“My anticipation is that every Rotarian has to participate — not every event — but you have to participate,” he said. “Why else do you join a service organization if you’re not willing to participate in service projects?”
The Sunrise club hosts multiple events each year, including the annual First Responders Picnic, and engages in other support efforts, including raising funds for We The People at the high school and providing air conditioning units for Birmingham residents with multiple sclerosis.
“We’re just volunteers helping, and we do it through Rotary,” Ammons said.
The big picture
The Sunrise Rotary isn’t the only group still meeting regularly.
On the first Friday of every month, the Vestavia Hills chapter of Civitan International meets at Vestavia Country Club for lunch.
Civitan focuses on serving the community specifically by supporting those with mental and physical disabilities, both through chapter-specific events and through paying dues that support efforts such as the Sparks Clinic at UAB.
President Bob Elliott said the Vestavia chapter is made up of a wide variety of ages, from those in their 30s to those in their 70s.
The chapter had become inactive for several years before Elliott and others decided to reconstitute it in 2013. In the time since, Elliott said, the group has grown from five members to about 40.
Elliott said while some may think Civitan or groups like it are simply lunch meetings for members to pat one another on the back, being involved in a service organization goes much further.
“That’s missing the bigger picture,” he said.
If someone wants to simply pay dues, attend a monthly meeting to get to know people, that’s fine, “but if you want to do more, those opportunities are there too,” he said.
In his remaining time as president, Elliott said he hopes to get the group involved in two annual service days, as well as restart the Pumpkin Patch to support dyslexia services at Vestavia schools.
And while those efforts aren’t huge, he said, they still matter.
“I’ve got no misconceptions that we can go out and change the community in a week. You can’t, but you can do something,” he said, “[and] you can gain a lot of ground through going through the inches.”
Changing methods
In 2000, Robert Putnam wrote a book, “Bowling Alone,” which took research about the social habits of Americans and painted a picture of declining engagement in the community. Putnam reported there had been a 48 percent drop in club meeting attendance compared to the preceding half century, and that while more people than ever were bowling — a traditionally social activity — many were bowling alone.
But in the decade and a half since Putnam’s findings, Pew found that a vast majority of Americans are still engaged in their communities, just perhaps not in the same way as previous generations.
Since he came into office last November, Mayor Ashley Curry said he has been astounded to see the number of volunteers the city has for everything from Little League baseball to holiday events.
“I’m very impressed with what volunteers do for the city,” he said.
As an example, Curry said the Department of Parks and Recreation estimated there are four volunteers for every recreational baseball team, a program that serves more than 1,000 children each year.
Adding in the other recreational sports, Curry said he thinks there are probably close to 800 volunteers giving time to teams alone.
In other areas, such as the social activities for older adults, the city provides some staff but a majority of the event organization for activities like Monday night dancing at the Lodge is done by volunteers.
Curry said the impact of so much volunteerism is twofold.
“I think it has a strong social impact, [and] a strong economic impact for the city,” he said.
“If we had to staff all of the positions that volunteers do, we couldn’t afford to do it.”
Curry said he sees volunteer opportunities providing social capital as well.
“The volunteer groups become social outlets, too,” he said. “It gives us a livability that other cities don’t have.”
Focused on community
Curry said he has no data on the matter, but he personally sees a trend of folks perhaps moving away from traditional service organizations to something more community-focused.
“I think there’s a shift,” he said. “Not that [clubs] don’t still serve a purpose,” he added, citing his own membership in Kiwanis several years back, before life got in the way.
Curry said he sees young parents turning more toward things such as parent-teacher organizations, in which they can be involved with a group that directly impacts their children.
One group that came directly out of supporting the immediate community and the school it surrounds is the Cahaba Heights Community Foundation (CHCF).
Formed in 2015 after a group of residents organized to protest the development of apartments next to Vestavia Hills Elementary Cahaba Heights, CHCF has grown into a community advocacy group that not only helps residents stay engaged with the city council, but also with one another.
“Honestly, I think what we found when we were doing the whole charrette process in Cahaba Heights several years ago, was there’s a really big need,” said resident and CHCF board member Lane Brown. “People want to be involved in Cahaba Heights.”
Brown said she’s found Cahaba Heights to be a uniquely intergenerational place, and, during meetings to develop the master plan for the community, residents of all ages repeatedly asked for a place to gather together.
This spring, after delays due to utility relocation and weather, the city finally opened Meadowlawn Park, and CHCF has hosted two movie nights.
“We’ve had great response from the community and local businesses,” Brown said, citing the more than 20 businesses who asked to sponsor the foundation’s Christmas in July movie event.
But more than events, Brown and fellow board member Robert DeBuys said the group has provided residents a way to come together — whether that be in person or online.
The CHCF Facebook page has almost 1,200 members, which Brown said is sizable compared to the population of the community.
“I think one of the things we’ve been really proud of is how the foundation page has functioned as a way to provide information to citizens about what is going on in the community, whether it’s planning and zoning meetings about certain projects, about events anywhere in the city, and really about the elections,” she said.
The foundation also hosted a candidate forum during the 2016 municipal elections.
“There’s more to it than just putting on events at the park,” DeBuys said.
Timeless staple
Whether through joining a traditional organization, serving on a PTO or joining a Facebook page, Curry said he sees Vestavia as incredibly involved.
“I think it’s indicative of the way people in this community get involved,” Curry said of the standard of living in the city.
Ammons, Elliott, Brown and DeBuys all said the only way to truly become part of a community is to get your hands dirty.
“You will certainly learn the community a whole lot better, and a whole lot easier, by doing that, and seeing for yourself,” Ammons said.
And Curry said he hopes that volunteerism, no matter the form, remains a staple of Vestavia for generations to come.
“People’s involvement made all of this happen, and I hope that would not change.”
