Volunteer Spotlight, October 2022

Known as RonTon in the WRAP circle, he is an incredibly talented carpenter, “the saw guy”, measuring expert, retired engineer, and family man.

Ron has been married to Sue, for over 55 years. Together, they have two grown children. Their son, Jerome, who is an engineer at Garmin in Kansas, and their daughter, Wendy, works in the Safety Department at Heartland Express. They have two grandchildren, John and Erica, and a great-granddaughter, Serenity.

His nickname came about in his early years at Collins when there were two or three men named Ron in his department. He was dubbed RonTon to distinguish between him and the others. If you are associated with WRAP, you will also know Ron as “the saw guy” but there is so much more to know, so we wanted to feature him as our Volunteer Focus this month.

Most people know that Ron is a gifted carpenter, and he has been volunteering with WRAP since 2003.

“I started building ramps before WRAP existed in 2003 with the Collins Retiree Volunteers. As of today, I have worked on 350 ramp builds.”

Born in North Dakota, about ten miles south of the Canadian border, he grew up in west central Minnesota. After high school, he attended the North Dakota College of Science, previously known as the North Dakota School of Science. In 1965, he was hired by Collins Radio, now Collins Avionics in Cedar Rapids, and retired from there in 2000. Throughout his engineering career at Collins spanning 35 years from 1965 through 2000, Ron worked on cockpit avionics for various aircraft. He also served six years in the Iowa Army National Guard.

After retirement, Ron became involved with the Collins Retiree Volunteer group and began building ramps to help people gain access to and from their homes. He also did a lot of carpentry work for Safe Haven of Iowa County, a no-kill cat and dog shelter in South Amana, Iowa. When they obtained their current building, he did most of the construction, creating rooms for the cat section of the building. He has also done some beautiful work at Clover Ridge United Methodist Church.

In addition to overseeing the measurements of each ramp, he precisely measures and cuts each part for each ramp he builds. Ron reviews the drawings, measurements, and material lists for the designers for each ramp design. Most recently, he has mentored a few new designers, which he enjoys.

How did he become interested in building things?

“I have worked with wood for as long as I can remember. I think I inherited the gene from my maternal grandfather, as he was a woodworker.”

In his spare time, Ron creates and builds some beautiful furniture for himself and his family. As a challenge, he even built a couple of type F mandolins! That sure sounds like talent to me!

One of Ron’s favorite memories during his work with WRAP was a ramp that they built for a child who was in an electric wheelchair. When the ramp was finished, the child came out and was having a ball riding up and down the ramp. He said it made everyone proud to have helped on the build.

What would Ron tell you if you were considering becoming a volunteer for WRAP?

“Do it! No special abilities are needed. We can always use help lifting and stacking boards to begin.”

The post Meet Ron Tonneson appeared first on WRAP.

Manager of Volunteer Services at St. Luke’s Cedar Rapids
The Woman Who Makes it Happen!

By Jodi Harris

When I meet someone who “makes it happen” I can immediately tell that they have the drive to do anything they put their mind to. Angela Berns is one of those people.
She graduated from UNI with a degree in Communications – Production and Performance for TV. In her senior year of college, she took an intern position with KGAN in Cedar Rapids, and quickly realized it was not the kind of work she wanted to do as a career.

She’s had many jobs over the years trying to find her true calling. Previous jobs included office management, catering, marketing, placement agent for a temp agency, and eventually commercial billing with MCI. At MCI she was caught in a massive layoff, and still had no idea what she wanted to do for the rest of her work life. Fortunately, this turned out to be a huge blessing. To pass the time while looking for new work, she went from her once a week, four-hour volunteer job at a local hospital, to volunteering whenever she was needed. Angela has been an active lifelong volunteer in the Cedar Rapids areas for a variety of non-profits. Volunteering has always been her true passion. She has fond memories of volunteering for many years at Mercy Hospital in Cedar Rapids. A place she could walk to after school and volunteer for several hours a week. She soon came to love the hospital environment and being of service to others.

During the time she was searching for a job, the Manager of Volunteer Services at St. Luke’s Hospital asked her to apply for a Volunteer Coordinator position there. To her delight she was hired in May of 2006. She never dreamed she could do something she loved so much as a career, but that is exactly what happened.

Angela has been working with WRAP since 2006 when she started at St. Luke’s Hospital as the RSVP, (Retired and Senior Volunteer Program) Volunteer Coordinator. Since the group formed in 2004, the organization has blossomed into a well-oiled machine that is fueled by a group of enthusiastic volunteers whose goal is to help people resolve accessibility problems and easily get in and out of their homes. She believes in WRAP, and she even got a little teary when I asked how she felt about the program.

“WRAP is an incredible organization that was born out of the purest, most genuine desire to serve other people. The people WRAP helps are those who were trapped in their homes and were not living a quality life until WRAP became the solution. I am proud of the many, many volunteers who have given these people the freedom to live a much higher quality of life.”

She explains that WRAP began with a hand full of volunteers who stored all their building supplies in or behind their garages. After a few months in her position as RSVP Volunteer Coordinator, John McDonough, one of her volunteers, and a founding father of WRAP, and Heidi Soethout, a representative from the Department of Corrections, 6th Judicial District asked her to attend a WRAP Coalition meeting. WRAP was still a coalition and had several people from various community organizations vested in WRAP’s success. When Angela joined them, they described their group as a “runaway bus”, and they wanted her to be their bus driver and leader to help them get going on their goals.

WRAP was born out of needs realized by a Rockwell Collins retired volunteer group called RCRV (Rockwell Collins Retired Volunteers). They were donating their services by doing safety inspections for the elderly. They observed that many elderly people were unable to leave their homes due to mobility issues. Those concerns sparked conversations with Aging Services, and they realized that many of these people could not leave their homes to fulfil their basic needs. They were unable to get to medical appointments, get their own groceries, get their mail and other critical tasks. The volunteers who realized this dilemma for the elderly shared their concerns with the rest of their group and began to think of ways they could help.

They designed and installed the first ramps together and began to hold monthly meetings to bring more awareness to people in positions of authority who could help. WRAP had been meeting for about three years when Angela was asked to join and lead the team. Some of her contributions have included formalizing processes, finding donors, (with the largest being St. Luke’s), solving staffing issues, developing marketing, and getting help with a website for the organization.

Since then, together with many wonderful volunteers, she has accomplished multiple milestones for which she is very proud.

• Obtained warehouse space to store ramp materials and supplies.
• Worked to add one paid part-time employee in 2007.
• Found WRAP office space for their employee at the hospital in 2008.
• Aided in helping WRAP become a 501c3 in 2010.
• Found assistance to make the WRAP website a reality in 2010 and to redesign it in 2020.
• Recruited volunteers to upgrade WRAP’s website and add content, including this blog.

Angela says on a day-to-day basis she feels like she does very little for the WRAP program but looking back there have been so many little things that have added up to the incredible organization it is today. To date the group has built 423 wooden ramps, removed 110 wooden ramps, in addition to installing and removing aluminum ramps, handrails, and they have also built wide steps to help with accessibility for many others.

If you are part of WRAP, you may think that it is the only program Angela is working on, however that is not the case. WRAP is just one of the programs that she oversees and continues to recruit volunteers for, who are qualified for the jobs they do. Currently she is President of IHAV (Iowa Hospital Auxiliary and Volunteers) a membership group of IHA, (Iowa Hospital Association) that supplies continuing education and networking opportunities for Iowa hospitals volunteer leaders.

She had been in her position for just ten months when her supervisor came to her and said she was going to retire. She strongly encouraged Angela to apply for her position, Manager of Volunteer Services at St. Luke’s. Angela applied for the job thinking there was no chance she would be considered as a candidate after being with St. Luke’s for such a short time. In July of 2007, she was chosen for the job.

Manager of Volunteer Services for St. Luke’s of Cedar Rapids

She began fifteen years ago and some of her responsibilities have included:

• Overseeing the big picture for the volunteers for the entire hospital
• Constantly being innovative in discovering new ways to be of service to the hospital
• Determining the volunteer staffing needs for the jobs available and creating a balance of skilled volunteers for each job
• Figuring out the specific needs of each department and ensuring that specialized training is given to the volunteers for those positions
• Ensuring that each volunteer is treated like team members.
• Being flexible and able to accept, embrace, and facilitate changes at a moment’s notice to best serve the hospital departments and staff
• Staying current on new trends and information and technology as it relates to volunteer services
• Offering volunteers, a quality experience and ensuring that they are assigned to a job that fits their skills, and placing them in positions that are of the greatest value to every department
• Serving on several local, state, and national boards
• Receiving volunteer management certificates at the hospital and international levels
• Successfully manages a local, state, and nationally recognized volunteer program

When asked how she manages to do it all, Angela says,

“I am blessed to have a great team that works together to achieve all the things we do to support St. Luke’s mission of “giving the healthcare we want our loved ones to receive”.

During the fifteen years in her position, Angela has seen much change.

In 2013 the Iowa Health System, which St. Luke’s Hospital Cedar Rapids belongs to, rebranded to UnityPoint Health to be more inclusive of their healthcare expansion into Illinois and Wisconsin. This also led the health system to create one set of values that all eleven hospital regions would operate under. UnityPoint Health has a vision for health care, and it starts with you: “Best outcome for every patient every time.”

UnityPoint Health’s core purpose is to improve the health of the people and communities they serve. This aligns with the mission of WRAP, Building accessibility one ramp at a time for those in need in the Linn County area and beyond…” As a result, WRAP has supplied guidance to people all over the world in building safe home access for their loved ones. Service to others is at the very center of what volunteers with WRAP and St. Luke’s do every day.

During our conversation, Angela also noted that she has seen a lot of great teamwork and kindness at St. Luke’s over the years. She mentioned the Flood of 2008 when Mercy Hospital had to transfer all their patients to other locations due to the damage they sustained. She remembered that St. Luke’s was the only hospital in town for almost two weeks while Mercy recovered and reopened. She also said they took care of as many of Mercy’s patients as they could and absorbed many of their staff to allow them to continue working through the disaster and to continue to provide excellent care for everyone.

The pandemic has been “Incredibly altering,” she said, in what used to be the healthcare norm. So many things have changed with the added precautions, work from home status, and all the changes that had to happen, literally overnight, in the way they care for their patients. Angela said that for two months, at the beginning of the pandemic, no volunteers were allowed in the hospital. This gave Angela and her team an opportunity to overhaul each assignment as they were brought back to better serve the hospital. She said all the changes have expedited efficiencies and improved their procedures. “I am extremely impressed with the way St. Luke’s managed the pandemic.”

Then came the Derecho. St. Luke’s took excellent care of their staff during the recovery of the storm and continued to deliver their high standards of caring for each patient, employee, and volunteer afterward. St. Luke’s rises to every challenge and learns from them to provide the very best healthcare to the community they can. It’s amazing to see innovation, pride, and love of community in action.

Today, the hospital continues to make improvements and to utilize each employee and volunteer efficiently.

Angela smiled as she told me about the labor pool. She said that she and most of the other employees were asked to help in other departments one or two days each week to cover staffing shortages during the latest COVID surge of Omicron. Last week you might have found her in the cafeteria doing dishes or serving customers, tomorrow you may find her doing whatever else needs done. Afterall, that is the kind of person she is. The one who does whatever it takes to make everything work out…

By volunteering you have given the most expensive and priceless gift anyone could have ever given – kindness and love.

Thank you!

The post Angela Berns appeared first on WRAP.

Meet Steve Schroeder, one very busy guy since retiring from Collins Aerospace in 2015. Steve not only volunteers as a wheelchair ramp designer for WRAP, but also helps out at Habitat for Humanity, Matthew 25, Cedar Rapids Noon Lion’s Club, CRVI, United Way 55+, University of Iowa, and St. Paul’s United Methodist Church.

You might see him anywhere in town, or maybe at an Iowa Hawkeye game shuttling people to and from in an ADA golf cart! When he is not doing all those things, he loves to help friends and neighbors, and is on the second remodel of his own home. Steve’s wife, Janet, says, “Steve didn’t retire, he just changes the address where he goes to work every day.”

Steve was born and raised in the small Southern California town of Eagle Mountain and graduated from San Diego State University with a BSEE degree in 1978, but that was just the beginning of his education. He landed his first job in Iowa at Rockwell International, now Collins Aerospace right after college. His career at Collins was exciting and throughout his 38.5 years there, he completed an MBA through the University of Iowa and a Master of Engineering in Systems Engineering from Iowa State University in 2002, both through a dual-degree master’s program sponsored by Collins.

Steve’s career began as an electrical engineer, where he was part of a team who designed electronic digital computer boards for Electronic Flight Instrument Systems (EFIS). As the years passed, he also worked as software engineer and multiple levels of engineering management for 28.5 years. He moved into the role of principal engineer for the last part of his career. He also spent eight years in the Railroad Electronics division at Collins.

When it came time to retire, Steve wanted to explore volunteer opportunities. He attended a meeting at work called the Collins Retiree Volunteers in Iowa or CRVI. Angie Ehle was there representing WRAP and Steve knew other retired Collins employees who volunteered for WRAP. Angie gave an update on the program, and it piqued his interest. He noted that the Collins retiree volunteers were the first to address the need for people to gain access to their homes in Linn County. So, he saw the need for more help at WRAP and it was a good fit for his skills.

Soon after retirement, he began volunteering as a builder at wheelchair ramp builds and enjoyed working with his hands. It became evident after he worked on a few builds, though, that there was a significant need for ramp designers, so he was assigned two mentors who taught him the ropes of designing. His first design was built in May 2016, and he has worn many hats at WRAP since then. Steve has worked as a builder, designer, cutter, mentor, teacher, and he also serves on the board of directors representing designers.

“Working for WRAP gives me the opportunity to purchase new tools! Woo Hoo! Tools that can be used to help with WRAP builds and other volunteer activities.” He always buys red tools, which is cause for much joking between him and other volunteers.

One of his favorite stories involved a WRAP build for a veteran who lost a leg. The day after the build, the man called Steve and tearfully expressed his gratitude for all he and the other WRAP volunteers did for him. He was so excited, and he could not wait to tell Steve that he was finally able to get in and out of his home by himself using his new ramp. “He just could not thank me and the other WRAP volunteers enough for doing this for him.”

Another memory involved a woman who was driving by during a ramp build. She stopped and asked what they were doing. “I gave an overview of what WRAP does and she said she would like to thank us for our efforts by providing us with lunch. She owned a sandwich shop, and even though I told her it was not necessary, she would not take no for an answer. Lunch was great!”

“Sometimes I will catch a glimpse of a client watching out the window at all of the build activities as their wheelchair ramp comes together. I can tell that they are excited and just can’t wait to use it.”

When asked what he would tell someone who is considering volunteering for WRAP, Steve says, “Just do it! WRAP provides an opportunity for you to give of your time to help others. It is a good way to meet other volunteers all with the same goal. At the end of the day, you feel great that you were able to provide home accessibility to someone in need.”

Volunteer or donate to WRAP, call (319)270-7294. Donations of materials are also welcome!

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