'A Credence of Volunteers

I am humbled by being selected as one of the recipients of Warwick Rotary's Outstanding Community Service Award this year. It is a great honor to be recognized in this way, particularly as the people who supported my nomination have all logged far more hours than I in the field of Warwick's history.
I have done my best to "help the work along," as Elizabeth Burt urged the members of the Warwick Historical Society in 1910.
But as everyone knows, there is no success without everyone pulling together. So I must point out that the only reason I have accomplished anything is because of others - fellow volunteers in the area of Warwick's heritage past and present. They are a legion of "worker bees" who have quietly but persistently labored to preserve and transmit our community identity as expressed our history.
Indeed a good deal of what is credited to me is not actually my doing at all, but theirs.
Warwick is an astonishing great hive of volunteer activity - there are so many who give so much of their lives in all different areas that many of us have not even met each other despite all working on the same project - that of making the Town of Warwick a very special place.
I think the collective noun for a group of volunteers should be "a credence" - for what all volunteers have in common is a deeply held belief. That belief is what drives us, the faith that what we are doing is of value to the community.
And so as I accept the recognition of the Rotary and the friends and colleagues who have brought me this honor, I salute all of you as well.
Sue Gardner
Warwick