Meet Martinsville’s volunteer power couple, Jack and Christine Stewart.
The Stewarts really keep things going in ways you sometimes see when you visit the Virginia Museum of Natural History (VMNH), MHC Heritage Museum or Piedmont Arts, but most of the time in ways you don’t see, because they are super important behind the scenes.
The Stewarts moved to Martinsville from Pennsylvania in August 2022. That’s actually a short time we’ve all known them for us to be wondering how in the world we ever got along without them, but we do wonder that.
Christine is a volunteer with the VMNH, is a Master Naturalist and has volunteered with and attended events at Piedmont Arts. Jack is a volunteer for the MHC Historical Society.
I’m the executive director of the MHC Historical Society, and when I say Jack is a volunteer with us, what I really mean is that Jack is the lynchpin which holds everything together at our museum, the MHC Heritage Museum.
The local history museum in the former Henry County courthouse has been open for many years, and Jack is our Friday host, from 1-4 p.m. Also, we now are filling our new annex with antiques – and the shelves, walls, stands and hooks and other structures used to display them. Jack helps build all that, and he moves things to and fro, and he fixes things and cleans things.
Meanwhile, over at the VMNH (that’s the science museum), “Christine Stewart is an amazing person and we … are fortunate to have her as a volunteer,” Christy Deatherage, VMNH’s Education Manager, said.
As soon as Christine finished the training portion of the Southwestern Piedmont Chapter of Virginia Master Naturalists in the fall of 2023, she started helping out in the museum’s education department. As a former teacher, she’s been absolutely fantastic with it, Deatherage said.
“Christine loves sharing her knowledge of the natural world, especially fungi, with the students,” Deatherage said. “She is a very organized person, and it shines through with her volunteering.”
Christine loves bats too, so it was only natural that she’d plan education tables about bats on various Saturdays, Deatherage said. That got Christine on to an even bigger project, monthly educational tables on various nature topics. She works with the museum’s research staff and its community partners.
For me at the history museum, and probably other museums too, volunteers mean a lot more than just getting things done. They also make the museum a fun place to be with plenty of friendliness, great conversations, mutual support and plenty of chuckles. It’s the same with the Heritage Museum’s other regular weekly volunteers, Davis Scott, Johnny Nolen, Michael Sanguedolce, Ann Martin, Deborah Stone (who also has just started working here officially as our office manager) and Dr. Mervyn and Virginia King. As well supporting our museum’s mission, we all have a great time together on a personal level, talking about our lives, sharing ups and downs, and laughing.
Oh, how we laugh, light-hearted and happy just to be together.
“Christine’s enthusiasm and passion for volunteering as well as creating engaging volunteer opportunities is to be commended,” Deatherage said.
“Thank God for Jack,” I and everyone else at our history museum say.
Here’s the great part: Volunteering is valuable not just for the organizations but also for the volunteers.
Volunteering gets the Stewarts out of the house in their retirement years. It gives each of them something of their own to do. Each day is different for them, which gives them interesting things to talk about over dinner.
And volunteering gives the Stewarts special times together, too. Whenever there’s a public event at either the science, history or art museum, you’ll see the couple there together, having fun with each other.
Sometimes both of them jump in to help run an event, such as when Christine and Jack joined other women and men helping prepare hors d’oeuvres for my first large reception, which I had gotten in over my head on not realizing how much work it would be.
And between and after the work, they’re at the event together, relaxing and socializing, but enjoying it too in that deeper way that only people with behind-the-scenes knowledge can do.
Holly Kozelsky can be reached at Kozelsky.mhchs@gmail.com and (276) 201-4697. She welcomes anyone interested in volunteering with the Heritage Museum to call her. To volunteer at VMNH, contact Lynette Perkins, volunteer manager, at (276) 403-8522 or lynette.perkins@vmnh.virginia.gov; for Piedmont Arts, visit www.piedmontarts.org/info/volunteer.cfm or call (276) 632-3221; and for FAHI (Fayette Area Historical Initiative), the museum of local black history, talk with Executive Director Charisse Hairston at (276) 732-3496 or executivedirector@fahimuseum.org.
awesome