Jeff Sodt of Nevada utilizes his vehicle and is paid mileage to deliver items to various places as a volunteer. He also delivers people who cannot drive to appointments. Sodt met his wife, Roberta “Bert” (Griffith) – a Nevada native, when both were working at Hach in Ames. He inherited two children when he married Bert, and they now have seven grandchildren.
One of the greatest resources we have in Nevada is volunteers. There’s no doubt, our community can always use more!
The Retired Seniors Volunteer Program (RSVP) specializes in lining up retired members of the community to meet many volunteer needs in the surrounding area. In Nevada, the program is thankful to have Jeff Sodt as one of its volunteers.
Sodt, a soft-spoken guy, has been volunteering with RSVP for more than 10 years.
“He has over 1,330 lifetime hours,” said RSVP Volunteer Coordinator Kim Anderson, who also lives in Nevada. Anderson said Sodt is generally a driver, delivering meals and commodities for various organizations.
Sodt said at least once or twice a week he is also a driver of people who cannot drive themselves. “I mostly take shut-ins to doctor appointments or other appointments, maybe even to the grocery store,” he said.
“I have a regular lady from Cambridge who goes to dialysis twice a week. I take her regularly,” he said, and it’s a pleasure, he added, that those he drives to and from are always genuinely happy to see him.
Even a miscommunication about where he was supposed to meet a client is now just a fun story to share and brings a chuckle from Sodt when he recalls it. “We didn’t communicate well enough… so I was upstairs and he was downstairs, and we were both wondering what was taking the other so long.”
Sodt, who moved around a bit as a child and went to high school in Burlington, Iowa, came to Story County when he attended Iowa State University to study chemistry. He then went to work at Hach in Ames, first as a chemist. He moved his way into other positions with the big manufacturer, and was working in inventory management when he retired from Hach 13 years ago.
Shortly after retirement, while out bike riding, he ran into a college friend, Steve Lekwa of Nevada. Lekwa, a volunteer for Meals on Wheels deliveries, recruited Sodt to partner with him. Meals on Wheels was Sodt’s first venture into community volunteerism.
It was a newspaper ad that caught his attention about RSVP’s need for volunteers. “I was looking for things to do. I’m not one to sit around and watch TV or be on the computer all day,” he said.
Sodt enjoys riding his bike and following the activities and sports contests of four school-age grandchildren living here. But he still has a good amount of time to volunteer, and he would love to see other retired members of the community get involved. “There are people and programs that need assistance. Our time (as retirees) is valuable, and I’d love to see people be generous with that time.”
Sodt said, the RSVP staff is a fun group to work with, and has also talked him into serving on the RSVP Advisory Council, which meets about four times a year to review and offer suggestions about the activities of the organization.
If you’d like to learn more about volunteer opportunities with RSVP, email Kim Anderson at coordinator@cirsvp.org.
–Written by Marlys Barker, City of Nevada
