City of Columbia

Volunteer of the Month for February 2016- Val DeBrunce

The City’s Volunteer Programs give opportunities to Columbians to build community and connect citizens to service opportunities. Val DeBrunce has volunteered as a Recycling Ambassador for over a year and was a charter volunteer for the program. He has reached out to the Downtown Community Improvement District to educate businesses and their employees about recycling practices. Val has visited over 80 businesses in an effort to increase material diverted from the landfill, even following up with each to ensure everyone in the line of communication knows what to do. He will soon begin outreach to residential property owners, managers and residents to continue his impact. A retired salesman, Val’s knack for building relationships with others has made it easy for people to jump on board with recycling efforts, investing time and energy to the greater good of the community. Val also serves on the Citizens Police Review Board. “Recycling is the right thing to do,” Val said. “Recycling Ambassadors are responsible for communicating City goals to both businesses and residents. It gets back to the awareness issue. There is a very high percentage of people that don’t know the changes the City is undertaking in order to make recycling easier.”

Written by volunteer Abby Holman