MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- In a time full of base closures and budget cuts, volunteer work can prove to be a useful tool to base-generating a monetary value that is no trivial matter.
One woman has donated more than 7,800 hours of her time as a volunteer on base, an unselfish effort that is worth more than $132,000 to Camp Pendleton. Not only has the base recognized this achievement, so has the president.
Lisa Wright was awarded the President’s Volunteer Service Award for lifetime achievement last month. Wright is the only Camp Pendleton volunteer to receive the award since George W. Bush established it in January 2002. The award calls for at least 4,000 hours of volunteer work. Wright gave almost double that number.
“It’s a very big award,” said Carmen Carlisle, volunteer program manager at Marine Corps Community Services. “When we called to request the award, it took a long time. It’s one of the highest recognitions for volunteers.”
Wright started her volunteer work in 1997, when she started working at the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. She continued her service in other areas, such as being a Leadership Education Seminar facilitator, a LINKS mentor, and a key volunteer.
“I started volunteering to keep up my teaching skills,” said Wright, who taught English and drama for nine years before marrying into the Marine Corps family. “I became hooked when I saw how much it helps military families.”
Wright worked as the Chairman of Volunteers at NMCRS, where she not only volunteered her time, she also provided leadership to others.
“Her work was extremely important,” said Michael Hire, director of NMCRS. “She basically managed the volunteer forces.”
Volunteers provide most of the services and work needed at NMCRS and are “extremely important to get the job done,” Hire said.
Although it’s impossible to calculate the number of lives Wright has touched, Hire estimated that she impacted a few hundred volunteers and more than 500 clients at NMCRS alone.
Wright may have found satisfaction in helping others, but it wasn’t the only perk of volunteering.
“I didn’t want to live parallel to my husband’s life,” said Wright, who is married to Staff Sgt. Jeff Wright of 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. “I found out more about the military, and it took pressure off my husband to educate me.”
Volunteering is definitely a pastime Wright recommends to other Marine Corps spouses, as it has connected her to both the community and to her husband.
“Volunteering definitely means you have to have commitment,” said Carlisle of Wright’s services. “She deserves the award with all the work she has done. She has touched so many lives.”
Wright says volunteering was a key way for her to get through her husband’s deployments, the most recent one which occurred over their ninth wedding anniversary. Although Wright doesn’t plan on quitting her volunteering services, she has cut back to take care of the couple’s 6-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son.
“I wish more people would volunteer,” Wright said. “It makes life easier to live.”