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Behind the Scenes: Volunteering helps keep local woman grounded

By Heather Graves
Editor


GREEN BAY –  Green Bay resident Diane Puymbroek said two things keep her going – her grandchildren and St. John’s Homeless Shelter.

“When I can’t see the grandkids, I put everything into the shelter,” she said. “It is my other love, my other passion.”

Puymbroek has been volunteering in the kitchen at St. John’s Homeless Shelter for more than three years, which she said she was inspired to do through her sister.

“My sister, she volunteered there,” she said. “She’s always volunteered. So I kept thinking, I have everything in my life, you know. I have a good marriage. I have a car that’s running. I have this and that.”

But Puymbroek said something seemed to be missing.

“I had a dream, like several nights in a row about the same shelter,” she said. “And I finally said, ‘You know what? I’m just gonna call.’ I’m just gonna show up one day, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I’ve been volunteering about three to five days a week.”

Puymbroek said during shelter season, the days she volunteers start at 3:30 in the morning.

“I put together what I have to put together and I’m at the shelter between 4:30 and 4:45 every morning,” she said. “And then I work until like 7:50 a.m. Then I go right from there to my full-time job (at Humana) and am there for eight or nine hours a day.”

Though the hours are long, Puymbroek said she wouldn’t have it any other way

“To be honest, (what I like most about volunteering at the shelter) is the way I feel,” she said. “It’s not about the compliments.”

Puymbroek said it’s the different things she does that make a difference that stick with her and keeps her coming back and giving her time.

“Like there was this one time this lady came up, she’s not there anymore, but she came up and I said ‘I like your sweater,’” she said. “And she started crying. And I felt so bad, because I thought maybe she got it up in the clothes closet or something… Later, when I got up to leave, she said, ‘Diane,’ and I said, ‘Yeah”’, she goes, “I want you to know something… I was gonna kill myself today and your kindness meant everything.’ She said I saved her, but what they don’t know is, I have depression and anxiety too, and a lot of times, it’s not what I do for them, but what they do for me. They make me feel needed. I feel like I am making a difference.”

Shelter duties

Puymbroek said she’s somewhat of a Jane-of-all-trades in the St. John’s kitchen.

“When I go in, the first thing I do is I restock stuff,” she said. “I clean up whatever’s left from the night before. Then I’ll look and I’ll see if there’s anything left over from the night before. Then I’ll make hard boiled eggs. They are promised at least a continental breakfast. So they have hard boiled eggs and cereal, that’s a given.”

Puymbroek said she does what she can to provide shelter guests a little more.

“It’s cold out, so I’ll make oatmeal for them,” she said. “Toast. And then I just serve the stuff. And when they’re all done eating, I’ll clean up – you know, do the dishes, sweep the floor, restock again for the next person.”

Puymbroek said for her, time at the shelter flies by.

“I don’t mind,” she said. “It keeps me busy. It keeps you grounded… Before I went there, I did a lot of assuming. But you’d be surprised at the different stories that you hear how people ended up there. And some are just like, Oh my gosh, you got a divorce and all of a sudden you can’t make your rent and now that you got kicked out of your place, and now you had nowhere to go. It’s just different things like that. It keeps you really, really grounded.”

Puymbroek said the hardest part for her is when she isn’t able to provide more for shelter guests.

“I was busy one day, and I didn’t make anything, which we never have to, but I walked in, and I opened up the cooler, and all I had to serve was corn and baked beans,” she said. “And I just lost it. Because it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I cannot believe this.’ But no one, no one said anything.”

Puymbroek said her work at the shelter helps her appreciate the blessings in her life.

End of shelter season

Saturday, April 30 is the last day of the shelter season for St. John’s Homeless Shelter, and it’s something Puymbroek said is weighing heavily on her heart.

“It’s going to be devastating when I leave (from my last day at the shelter), because I worry,” she said, fighting back tears. “I worry so much about these people. They’re like my family. I worry about where they are going to go. I just want what’s best for them. And I’m so lucky and grateful. You just can’t take anything for granted. You really can’t.”

Puymbroek said she’s trying to figure out what helping the homeless will look like during the summer months.

“I am trying to figure out how I’m going to do this,” she said. “I don’t know. It’s hard because of the hours and my full-time job. But I’m going to see what I can do. Because I want to continue to help anyway I can.” 

St. John’s Lady

Puymbroeck is affectionately known at the shelter and in parts of the Green Bay area as the “St. John’s Lady.”

“A lot of the guests call me the St. John’s lady,” she said. “But also, there is a store… I thought, I’m going to ask them if they have any vegetables they are gonna throw away or something, because you know, when they start getting wrinkly, they can’t sell them? So, it started then that when I went in there, the produce guy would say, ‘here comes the St. John’s lady.’ He would give me a banana box with the wilted, wrinkled peppers and other different vegetables, carrots, onions. And that’s what I make my soups with.”

Puymbroeck said these connections also give her an opportunity to share information about St. John’s.

“People will ask me questions about St. John’s,” she said. “It’s funny, because they know me as St. John’s lady.”

Puymbroeck said she’s also received donations from people at her church after they found out she volunteered there.

“Other times, people donate supplies for pancakes, because they know I like to make pancakes for the guests,” she said.

Encourage others to volunteer

Puymbroeck encourages everyone to volunteer in some capacity, “because I think whatever you do comes back 100 times.”

“Don’t let fear keep you from doing it,” she said. “I’m going to be 60 in May, and if I would have known what I know now, I would have done this years and years and years ago. If you make a difference in one person’s life, you’re doing something positive, and I think this world needs a lot more positivity. I mean, how can there be too much love right?”

More information on St. John’s Shelter, its needs and how to volunteer can be found at stjohnsgreenbay.org.

It’s often said it’s the work of the people behind the scenes that make things happen. The Press Times looks to highlight those very contributions in a series called Behind the Scenes.

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