Pit bulls get a bum rap. Stephanie DeBolt, board president for the Fort Wayne Pit Bull Coalition, thinks so, anyway, and she is determined to change that.Take 2 million passengers, add 750,000 cookies, toss in thousands of donated hours and you get a recipe for success.
Fort Wayne’s well-known airport hosts are celebrating 10 years in the hospitality business. After greeting passengers and guiding them to local attractions for a decade, the volunteers were recognized for their milestone by the Fort Wayne-Allen County Airport Authority at its monthly meeting Monday.
Through the years, they have greeted more than 2 million passengers, assisted 200,000 guests, handed out about 750,000 Ellison Bakery cookies, given aviation museum tours to 10,000 children and donated more than 100,000 hours of service, volunteer coordinator Judy Lake said.
In 2007, the volunteers received a Hoosier Hospitality Award for excellence and dedication to their jobs, which benefit tourism. And the airport opened a new welcome center to serve as the hosts’ home base in October, replacing a small kiosk the hosts used previously.
Twenty-eight original volunteers still continue to donate their time and they were honored with a special ceremony in February, Lake said.
The volunteers shun their more familiar name – the cookie ladies – in part because about a quarter of the 66 volunteers today are men, Lake said.
They also do so much more than hand out Ellison Bakery cookies to arriving passengers, said Carolyn Smith, 74, a volunteer for all 10 years the program has existed.
In fact, the volunteers didn’t even hand out cookies during the first year, she said.
Volunteers spend a lot of time answering the phone, especially during bad weather, and answering questions about flight arrivals and departures. They comfort ill passengers and seek help from the public safety department if medical attention is needed.
They also chitchat with passengers looking for a friendly face to help pass the time. And they give directions to Fort Wayne attractions plus suggest restaurants to visit, Smith said.
Smith likes the work because she meets new people and often runs into old friends. When she first got involved, she wanted to do something uplifting and different. The airport provided a good fit, she said.
When airport officials first suggested creating the volunteer program, many thought it was a crazy idea and wondered who would want to volunteer for the airport, recalled board member Tim Haffner.
At the time, it was rare for airports to offer such a service. Today such assistance is more common but Fort Wayne is probably the only airport that hands out cookies, Lake said.
