Volunteer Spotlight: Ruth Kale

Volunteer Spotlight: Ruth Kale
Every Act of Kindness Begins with Volunteering

As part of National Volunteer Recognition Week, which is held April 21-27, 2024, we will be spotlighting a volunteer each day. Cornwall Manor is proud to recognize 352 volunteers who dedicated their time and talents to Cornwall Manor throughout 2023, contributing 23,821 hours to our community.

“Commandments teach us to love one another and that is what a volunteer does,” shares Cornwall Manor Resident Ruth Kale.

Ruth earned her degree in teaching with advance work in reading. College is where she met her husband, David, who received his degree in Communication. They had two children, a son and a daughter and today have four grandchildren (three grandsons and one granddaughter).

David’s first job was at Messiah University, PA. Ruth was part of the women’s auxiliary at Messiah and taught kindergarten through third grade. David’s advances in his career moved the family around, where their next stop was Illinois, south of Chicago.

While in Illinois, Ruth taught a specialized reading program called Reading Recovery, which she loved teaching to first graders. At the church the Kale family attended, their children were involved in Teen Missions International, which launches youth into lifetime missions involvement by training, discipling and mobilizing them to impact the world. In the summertime, they went on a six-week missions trips to Belize – did everything from construction and rehabilitation to teaching Vacation Bible School.

The family moved back to Massachusetts, where David took a position with Eastern Nazarene College. Dave’s position as Academic Dean oversaw mission trips to Romania. This country was just coming out of communism and opportunities were open to all Eastern Nazarene College students to help in Romania, but specifically for students majoring in micro-economics and social work. Over time, additional colleges and universities became involved in the important work that needed to be done to rebuild Romania. Ruth was able to travel to Romania three times to help and had the opportunity to design and teach workshops for Romanian elementary teachers on new methods in math and reading that made use of manipulatives.

In 2010 and 2011, David did half semesters, where he taught in the fall and he and Ruth traveled by camper in the spring and enjoyed birdwatching. David retired in 2012 and eventually they came to Pennsylvania from Ohio. Their volunteering included a food pantry in Sullivan County. They gave their time to hand out food once a month and took food to the local senior center to distribute.

In 2020, they moved to Cornwall Manor and became involved in the community. Ruth works in the Gateway Library, helps prepare communion as an Altar Guild, works in the Manor Shoppe (gift, grocery and convenience store in the Freeman Community Center), is a member of the Residents’ Association Tree and Environment Committee and helps with the gift baskets for the Cornwall Manor Society’s Blooms & More Silent Auction and volunteers at the Society’s “Cookies, Crafts, Carols and More” event in December.

Throughout Ruth’s life, she’s had ongoing opportunities to meet new people in new towns at new jobs and new churches and at each stop along her journey, she always found a way to serve others. “We were put on this earth to support one another,” she shares. Cornwall Manor is fortunate to have so many caring and compassionate volunteers like Ruth living and working here. Volunteers are what make our community so special.