Chugging away at the core of Carol Woods retirement community's not-for-profit mission is a committee of active, dedicated residents who spend many hours learning, growing, and contributing to life inside and outside their community.

Each week, residents like Eugen and Anne Merzbacher depart from their cottage in the woods to lend a hand, and some trunk space, to picking up donated groceries from the South Estes Drive Harris Teeter and delivering them to the Inter-faith Council for Social Service drop-off center in Carrboro. There the groceries get sorted and distributed to needy families in Orange County.

Residents participate in and learn about volunteering opportunities and needs such as this one through the Community Relations Committee at Carol Woods.

The committee includes a group of residents interested in fostering and maintaining cooperative and responsible relationships between Carol Woods residents and their local, statewide, and global communities. It is chaired by Nancy Gustaveson, a resident, former teacher and active RSVP and Orange County volunteer.

Current committee members include Nancy Gustaveson, Louise Baker, Wynn Berg, Diane Brown, Gordon DeFriese, Norm Gustaveson, Martha Gwyn, Lois Ann Hobbs, and Eugen Merzbacher. Jack Chestnut, director of community contacts, and Jacqueline Allen, CCRC representative, are liaisons to the committee. This group of volunteers, organizers, and activists meets monthly to learn more about community needs and to coordinate volunteer outreach and connections.

The Community Relations Committee serves as an entry point for the outside community to inform and involve Carol Woods' residents in the greater community. From here, willing volunteers connect with information and opportunities and get to work.

The committee is also an avenue through which new residents can find projects to engage in and places to contribute their skills after they've settled into the community.

Carol Woods' resident volunteers have maintained commitments and partnerships with many local organizations and institutions for more than 20 years and continue to enjoy the relationships today.

Longstanding commitments relating to UNC were initiated early, such as the UNC-TV telethon and the university-sponsored Great Decisions program, an outreach program of the Foreign Policy Association. A very successful team was formed when Carol Woods residents partnered with UNC's Mobile Student Health Action Coalition (now called Beyond Clinic Walls). This program typically serves older adults in the community who have complex medical and social needs and who are often isolated from family and friends.

The Community Relations Committee began around 1980 and was formed by the Resident's Association. Volunteers from Carol Woods are continuously spending time volunteering and brainstorming ways to give back to the community.

The RSVP 55+ Program of Orange County is a popular avenue through which Carol Woods residents choose to volunteer. Through many different opportunities, resident Charles Paddock has logged more than 8,500 hours since 1987, and continues to add to this total each year. Paddock has spent years donating his time to organizations such as VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, an IRS program where he helps prepare taxes), Meals on Wheels delivering food with his wife Janet, and SHIIP (Seniors Help Insurance Information Program).

While retirement is typically thought of in terms of vacations and leisure time, Carol Woods' residents willingly spend many of their weekdays and weekends traveling to homeless shelters, the hospital, or the local AIDS House, as well as many other locations where their skills and help can be utilized.

Several residents are baby "cuddlers" or massage-givers at UNC Hospitals, and some tutor students in the local public schools. One resident spends her time tutoring a Carol Woods staff member in English as a Second Language and has been working with this employee for two years to help her improve her English-speaking skills.

Chestnut said many residents want to continue to work after they've officially "retired," and they find that volunteering gives them a "new life," according to Chestnut.

"Residents seem, because of their backgrounds, very interested in giving back," he said. "Now that they're here [at Carol Woods] they want to have a way to give back to the community."

Chestnut said that the "culture" of Carol Woods' residents has evolved over time into a vigorous volunteering machine that attracts other soon-to-be retirees to the community.

"It's just part of their makeup; they've heard about the high level of volunteer activity among Carol Woods' residents, they've read about it, and they want to be involved," he said of prospective residents who are drawn to the community.

Since they have the free time, residents put a lot of effort into where they direct their energies, and some focus on areas that relate to their former work experience.

"Carol Woods does such a good job meeting all the needs of the residents, and because of this, they don't need to worry about transportation, housing, and all the other things people in the outside community worry about," Chestnut said. "Residents have a natural instinct to help others find affordable housing, healthcare and transportation."

Through brainstorming, coordinating, and volunteering, the dozen or so residents on the Community Relations Committee at Carol Woods Retirement Community and a vast number of other resident volunteers will continue to turn a concerned ear towards the needs of the local, state, and global communities as long as they can.

"Carol Woods is a community that values each gift of time and energy whether large or small," Gustaveson said. "Everyone has a place at the table."