Beyond Busy – Super volunteer finds 55 ways to serve

• For This Connecticut Citizen, Volunteering Is Like Breathing

The original version of this story received an SPJ award and was previously published in our monthly Today Magazine — this Today Online version has been revised and updated

By Bruce Deckert

Today Magazine Editor-in-Chief

While every volunteer story is worth telling, the numbers connected with one particular citizen in Connecticut's Farmington Valley are absolutely stunning and staggering.

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David W. Roberts (aka Dave) is a resident of West Granby, a distinct section of the town of Granby. By his account, he has served via an astounding 55 boards, commissions, organizations and elected roles throughout his life.

In an email to Today Magazine, he wrote in the subject line: “The Energizer Bunny is Real” – a nod to the classic ad campaign for Energizer batteries. Indeed, he is a quintessential example of volunteer vitality in the Valley.

Roberts’ family history in Connecticut dates back 13 generations to the early 17th century. His paternal ancestors immigrated from England in 1629 to what was then known as Connecticut, settling in Long Island, which he says was then part of the Connecticut territory.

“My uncle, the late Barkhamsted town historian Doug Roberts, told me that when Connecticut was being settled, the land in the northwestern part of the future state was considered harsh, uninhabitable and worthless,” Dave Roberts says. “Many tracts of land were given away or sold very cheaply to entice families to northwestern Connecticut.”

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Roberts’ ancestors moved to the village of Riverton, part of present-day Barkhamsted, and the nearby area along the Farmington River. The village of Robertsville is named after his family — just northwest of Riverton, Robertsville is part of present-day Colebrook.

“Volunteering is in the Roberts family DNA,” he says.

Roberts grew up in Riverton in a home built on a former asparagus field. His great-grandparents had the largest asparagus farm east of the Mississippi River, he explains, and much of their old farmland is now part of People’s State Forest in Barkhamsted.

He graduated from Northwestern Regional High School 7 and Northwestern Connecticut Community College — he says one of his grandfathers helped establish both schools — before receiving a B.A. degree in political science and economics from American University.

Dave Roberts has clearly inherited the volunteer gene. The Google Dictionary defines the term as follows:

• volunteer • noun — someone who works for an organization without being paid — who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task.

• volunteer • verb — work for an organization without being paid — freely offer to do something.

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Roberts, 64 years young, has a volunteer resumé as long as the Farmington River — including the following roles in his hometown:

• Granby Conservation Commission – chair

• Justice of the Peace – elected

• Granby Grange 5

• Salmon Brook Historical Society – secretary and board of directors

• Granby Men’s Breakfast group – speaker and helper

• Valley Brook Community Church – Sunday School

• Granby Zoning Board of Appeals – alternate member

• Waste Not Want Not Community Kitchen

For the uninitiated, Granby and East Granby are different towns. However, the villages of West Granby and North Granby are part of the Granby municipality that in turn is part of the five-town region in north-central Connecticut typically known as the Farmington Valley — in alphabetical order, those five towns are: Avon, Canton, Farmington, Granby and Simsbury.

“My Granby volunteer efforts help me focus my energy to keep our wonderful community vibrant,” Roberts says.

Where does he find the time?

“You just make time,” he affirms. “I try not to overcommit, but I like to find opportunities to help others in need. … There is a saying: If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it — the more things you do, the more you can do.”

If someone published a volunteer dictionary, an entire entry for the term “busy” could be devoted to Dave Roberts. It certainly helps that he is retired — he has been retired since 2017, when he returned to Connecticut after living in California for a number of years.

The above volunteer roles only reflect Roberts’ involvement in Granby. He fulfills numerous other duties at the local, state and national levels.

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“My Granby volunteer efforts help me focus my energy to keep our wonderful community vibrant” — Dave Roberts

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Roberts has served as the district governor for 50-plus Lions clubs in Hartford and Litchfield Counties and as the head volunteer for all Connecticut Lions — with the lion’s share of responsibility statewide. He is likewise active in the New England Lions Council and has served at the Lions Low Vision Center of Hartford and Litchfield Counties.

Based in Illinois, Lions Clubs International is a service organization with 1.4 million members and 48,000 clubs worldwide, according to the Lions website.

Further, in 2022 Roberts was the Lions-appointed representative to the United Nations Council of Organizations — a federation of nonprofits, NGOs and similar agencies. Eleanor Roosevelt founded the U.N. COO in 1947, just two years after the United Nations was established.

“When the United Nations was just launching, former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was concerned that not enough Americans were supporting this critical new organization to promote world peace,” Roberts notes. “So she helped start the United Nations Council of Organizations.”

Roberts chaired the U.N. COO’s 75th-anniversary celebration throughout 2022. He has also received two of the Connecticut Lions’ highest honors: Ambassador of Sight and the Presidential Leadership Award.

“Lions has been a great organization to focus many of my passions,” Roberts says. “And I love my United Nations work as it helps me learn ideas to help others on a much larger scale.”

Meanwhile, Roberts has served as the program director for Connecticut State Grange, which is part of the National Grange — a family- and community-focused service organization with roots in agriculture. In Barkhamsted, his family’s hometown, he is the president of Riverton Grange 169 and vice president of Mountain Laurel Pomona Grange 14.

“I was introduced to the Grange by my grandmother, Dorothy Roberts, and my father, Arba Alford Roberts,” he explains. “The National Grange honored the Roberts family for having five generations of continuous membership in Riverton Grange — my great-grandparents were charter officers in 1908.”

This year, Roberts is slated to receive his 50-year membership recognition from National Grange.

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“There is a saying: If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it” — Dave Roberts

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In addition to his national and state volunteer exploits, Roberts has been involved further locally, believe it or not — here’s a partial list:

• Barkhamsted Historical Society

• Barkhamsted Lions Club – past president

• Barkhamsted Senior Center – president

• Friends of American Legion and People’s State Forests

• National Eagle Scout Association

• Pleasant Valley Community Food Bank

• Sons of the American Revolution

And there’s more — he has trained service dogs for the Torrington-based nonprofit Educated Canines Assisting with Disabilities (ECAD) and has participated in the Great Cycle Challenge USA, a fundraising event for children’s cancer research.

In his spare time — if that phrase makes any sense in this context — he has been known to voluntarily mow the lawns of Squires Tavern (via the Barkhamsted Historical Society) and Barkhamsted’s historic Washington Hill United Methodist Church. Oh, and to collect needed supplies for the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation, the Bloomfield-based nonprofit.

Before retiring in 2017, Roberts recorded an eclectic career history of public service and corporate employment that surely prepared him for his transition into full-time volunteerism.

By his account, he worked for Lowell Weicker Jr., the U.S. senator from Connecticut, and served a stint in the Pentagon as a budget officer for the U.S. Air Force. When President Ronald Reagan civilianized many former military positions, Roberts was the first civilian deputy chief of staff for base operations for the U.S. Air Forces in Europe. While serving on the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, he helped create what was then a top-secret project — developing the TRICARE military healthcare system.

Roberts was a vice president for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), an engineering and IT services company, and for the nonprofit Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

Further, he served as an appointee under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in the Department of Health and Human Services — and also served for 12 years as an elected official in California’s San Diego County, one of our nation’s largest counties, where he was a city councilman, deputy mayor, mayor and county supervisor representing over 650,000 residents.

Whew … let’s catch our collective breath. Is anyone else weary from simply considering the career and volunteer adventures of Dave Roberts?

Indeed, volunteering is apparently as natural as breathing for Roberts — and he is evidently the epitome of volunteer vitality in the Farmington Valley. +

Today Publishing features community news that matters nationwide and aims to record Connecticut’s underreported upside — covering the heart of the Farmington Valley and beyond

This story won a first-place SPJ award in the January 2023 edition of Today Magazine, our monthly publication — editor-in-chief Bruce Deckert is an award-winning journalist who believes we all merit awards when we leverage our God-given gifts for good

Related News • Today​ Wins Most SPJ Awards ​Among ​CT Magazines

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