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By MARK GUYDISH [email protected]
Monday, October 06, 2003 Page: 1A
WILKES-BARRE TWP. – “So,” Nathan Stebbins said, rolling his young eyes
slightly, “you want to hear that story. …”
Well, yeah, we do. When a 14-year-old has already carved out a niche as
volunteer extraordinaire, it’s natural to wonder about the origin of such
generosity.
“The first time was at Holy Family Church” in Scranton, Nathan explained.
“I guess I was 5 or 6.” He “sold tickets,” and “helped the nuns out,”
then fell asleep in a cardboard box. “A nun came in and threw rags on me.”
Ahh, the hazards of helping.
Nathan seems to donate time the way most kids play video games –
chronically. These days you can find the lanky Scranton High School freshman
strolling the halls of the hospice unit at the Department of Veterans Affairs
Medical Center in Plains Township, helping the bedridden, bringing water,
listening to stories.
But that’s just the latest variation on his volunteerism – a trait that
sounds, when he discusses it, genetic.
“Everybody in my family does volunteer work,” Nathan said. He’s one of
“28 grandkids and they all volunteer.”
The Scranton resident volunteered at his church. He coordinated a bake
sale. He collected donations at Mass. He tutored younger kids in elementary
school. He escorted blood transports for the Red Cross.
He donated so much time that former President Bill Clinton sent him an
autographed photo and a letter of praise. “Community service is not only
noble,” the chief of state wrote, “but also necessary.”
That was in 1996. Stebbins was a preteen, barely of school age.
More recently, the VA medical center gave him an award for 50 hours of
service there. He comes when his mom, a nurse at the hospice, is on shift –
these days that’s 3 or 4 p.m. to 11 or midnight – too late for a schoolboy, so
he only shows up Fridays or Saturdays.
Stroll into patient rooms with Nathan and you see his impact.
“How’re you doing, Mr. Walker?” he asked, drawing Robert Walker’s
attention away from reruns of Sally Field’s “Gidget” series.
“I’m not so good today,” Walker answered. “My brain ain’t functioning.”
Maybe not – he couldn’t remember Sally Field’s name (“that girl who won an
Oscar for the movie about the union,” meaning ~~“Norma Rae”), or the show
he was watching (“Gigi, or something like that”) but he recognized his
visitor. “Nathan’s a nice boy,” he said with a smile.
“I brought a cupcake in for his birthday,” Nathan added, giving a hint of
why residents enjoy his visits.
There’s also the fact that Nathan listens – a lot. He sat down next to
91-year-old Donald Gehris, a veteran who used to make watches and tie fishing
flies. Gehris detailed how he made two rods that were supposed to end up in
the hands of President Dwight Eisenhower.
“You make six V-shaped pieces to make a hexagonal rod,” Gehris explained.
“You cure it in a kind of roasting oven. You glue them together and bind
them. I did it all by hand.”
The rods meant for Eisenhower sported mahogany handles with cork grips. He
made them for an outdoor group that was supposed to give them to the
president, but “he never received them.”
When asked about time spent with Nathan, Gehris gave a wide smile. “I love
him. He’s a nice man, a nice young man. I wish I could teach him to tie
flies.”
Of course, many of these patients are much less alert, or just less
communicative. “If they don’t want to talk, there’s nothing really you can
do. Just serve their needs.
“Sometimes I escort people to activities, sometimes I help them a little
with dinner, like opening the milk.”
It’s easy to suspect, when he talks about all of this volunteering, that
Nathan doesn’t reserve much time for himself. That would be a wrong
impression.
He plays chess, well enough to win a championship in 1996. At a bit taller
than 6 foot, 2 inches – “All the kids in our school are small,” he laments –
he plays center in basketball and helped win a championship in that, too.
He plays the snare drum in the marching band. He ran a three-mile leg in a
relay triathlon – “I didn’t realize I was going to be in it until the night
before; they were short a runner.”
And he was a Cub Scout and is a Boy Scout. In fact, while it takes 21 merit
badges to reach Eagle rank, he earned a few more. “I have 42 or 43 now,” he
said modestly.
For his Eagle Scout project, he decided to breed finches at home and give
them to neighbors as pet therapy. He started with two birds and “at one point
had five or six cages in one room, with three birds in each cage. It was a
little aviary.”
It was also a little time consuming. It took about an hour to clean all of
the cages. It took about 26 days for an egg to hatch – assuming the right
minerals in the food were provided and the right conditions were maintained.
But then, when you start volunteering before you started school, by age 14,
a month of egg-watching isn’t a very long commitment.
Mark Guydish, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7161.