Volunteer Profile Elaine M. Connelly

You can say “meet me at the equator” - she is there, says Diana Archer, Coordinator of Osborne’s Children, Youth, and Family Services (CYFS), describing long-time volunteer Elaine Connelly. Elaine came to Osborne through Saint James Church, the Manhattan-based faith community that has been an essential supporter of Osborne’s child and family programs for nearly two decades. In the twelve years that Elaine has been a volunteer, she’s been part of it all - the Saturday Rec outings for children of all ages, the afterschool programs for teens, the holiday celebrations, and tri-annual plane trips taking children to see their mothers at Albion prison, and the advocacy trips that bring young participants to talk to elected officials in Albany. COVID brought new challenges, and she met them by delivering groceries and winter clothes to families that could not leave their homes, and by helping organize Rec “outings” and tutoring sessions and afterschool activities that had to go remote.

A mother of three, Elaine has taken what she learns from her own growing children over the years and brought that to CYFS. Most recently, she’s become an expert on the college application process, and has helped the older teens of Osborne’s Youth Action Council draft essays, fill out forms, apply for scholarships, and prepare for this new adventure.

If you ask Elaine what she likes about volunteering for Osborne, she has a long list ready. She likes that it’s so hands-on. She likes being able to see results, to be there as the children in CYFS tackle challenges, graduate high school, go on to college. She likes that Diana Archer is so good at communicating what she needs, and what the kids of CYFS need - “it’s very helpful for a volunteer.” She also likes that this hands-on, up-close investment of her time is connected to a larger struggle against injustice. From both perspectives, the stakes are high - the future of a single young person, and the future of the country’s criminal justice systems. She cares deeply about both.

Recently, Elaine spoke over the phone to a young woman she had met more than five years ago, when Elaine’s volunteer assignment was to take this young person - then barely in her teens - to Washington, D.C., to attend a national conference for youth affected by parental incarceration. The girl grew up and went on to college, supported by one of the Give Back scholarships that have helped so many Osborne participants do the same. Then 2020 came, and - like so many others - this young person took a break from school. As Elaine talked to her about getting back into classes, maybe starting with a summer course, about how important it was to get her degree - she was struck by a sense of the ebb and flow of this young woman’s life, and by her persistence. Working as an Osborne volunteer for so many years, Elaine has seen successes and setbacks, followed by setbacks and successes again, as the young people repeatedly rise to meet the challenges built into their lives.

Elaine was also struck by a sense of how deep her volunteer work had become. “It’s not surface level,” she says, “as in ‘Okay, I went to that event.’ Ultimately, it’s about the relationship.”