Mary Ripley Volunteer - A Portrait of a Life of Service

The Memoirs of one of IAVE's founders, Mary Ripley:

Part 1 - Introduction and Mary At Work In The US
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Part 2 - Fundraising and Mary's Work Around The World
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Part 3 - The program from the 1970 LIVE Conference
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Part 4 - Mary's Work Around the World (continued)
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Part 5 - Mary's Work Around the World (continued)
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Part 6 - Mary's Work Around the World (continued)
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Part 7 - The Last Word!
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Online excerpts:

Part 1 - Introduction and Mary At Work In The US

"Wow! That was great fun!" exclaimed 93-year old Mary Ripley as she gingerly dismounted from the rear seat of a shining black Harley-Davidson motorcycle. She had just completed a whirlwind (80 mph) ride down the interstate freeway near her upscale retirement community in Portola Valley, California, near Stanford University. Over the years her children and friends had discouraged her from trying to ride a motorcycle, but Mary, never put off by naysayers, decided that at 93, she would do it and found a young man who was willing to have a passenger. As she removed her gold and blue crash helmet, a friend remarked that "That's Mary! Never takes NO for an answer." (Several sources: Anonymous)

The information in this brief and informal memoir of Mary Ripley's life as an active volunteer over a 70-year period is drawn from a variety of sources especially Mary's friends and colleagues and associates as well as her family and hours of talking with Mary herself. The editors have attempted to show the parallels between Mary's many activities and causes to which she gave leadership, enthusiasm, and often, success and the changes occurring at the same times in society. The amazing growth in the numbers of nonprofit social service organizations to serve newly recognized needs required strong, focused leadership as well as improved communications and the professional management of organizations involving volunteers.

Interspersed throughout are comments from many of Mary's friends and colleagues. Much of the material is in 'question and answer' format as a result of a very long day of videotaping Mary while a panel of six associates peppered her with questions.

Part 2 - Fundraising and Mary's Work Around The World

"Mary is comfortable entertaining international dignitaries, her friends and family. She gets a twinkle in her eye when she tells stories about her world travels with her granddaughter, Jessica. She introduced Alan and me to gooey duck clams when she sent us clam digging with her neighbors...Alan never realized he would be upside down in a trash can digging for a clam! She shares her interest in empowering women, civil society, and volunteerism with all her friends. Mary enjoys life and knows how to live well. We have all learned from her friendship and appreciate the time we spend together."
Joanne and Alan Kumamoto, Kumamoto Associates

“I met Mary at Resthaven Mental Health Center in Los Angeles in 1970. I was a raw fundraising tyro, mostly involved in special events, and she a board member, mentor and friend.

“To call a psychiatric facility “Resthaven” takes some moxie, and may suggest you've seen too many Mel Brooks movies, but in fact Resthaven had been the mental health center to the stars of Hollywood for half a century at that time, and was nationally recognized as one of the innovators in psychiatric treatment. Dance and music therapy were pioneered there, as was work-place therapy.

“Thanks to Mary and some of her friends at the old Friday Morning Club, Resthaven was also a national leader in volunteer training and utilization, even in the inpatient settings. A group of fifteen 'mega volunteers', which included Ellen Linsley, Jan Kern of Community Partners and other community leaders, was recruited and trained in the early seventies by Mary's friends, Marian Jeffery and Marjorie Matsushita. Mary Ripley served as the unofficial den mother to the group and liaison to the center's board of directors. The success of that group became the stuff of legends, and was soon emulated by the Thalians, Gateways and other community mental health centers across the state.

“There was never a task too small for Mary. She led by doing, and sometimes it was arduous. One year as a fundraising device, Frank Vessels gave Resthaven a new automobile and the opportunity to raffle it off at his race track in Los Alamitos. It was tough work, wearing white straw hats and working the motley race track crowd to sell raffle tickets at a buck a shot. As I checked in the volunteers on the first night, standing with the other volunteers, white boaters placed jauntily on their heads, were Mary Ripley and her husband, “Rip.”

“Mary taught me that night and many times thereafter, that leaders stand in front. A simple lesson, perhaps, but one I have to re-learn all the time. It's a lesson that seems to have been stitched into Mary Ripley's genetic code. We shall not see her  ike again soon, I think.”
Jack Shakely, California Community Foundation.

Part 3 - The program from the 1970 LIVE Conference

Learn through International Volunteer Effort - IAVE's first World Volunteer Confernce

Part 4 - Mary's Work Around the World (continued)

The LIVE (Learn Through International Volunteer Effort) Conference was held in Los Angeles in October 1970 with 85 delegates representing 15 countries attending. Los Angeles families hosted all of the delegates. By the end of their week together there was a commitment to form an International Board elected from all world regions. Volunteers supported by a network of National Representatives, who are themselves volunteers, do the work of the organization.

Today IAVE brings together over 1,000 members from more than 100 countries. There is a permanent secretariat in Washington, DC, an International Resource Center in Taiwan, an IAVE Website, a Newsletter in four languages, Global Corporate Volunteer Council and linkages to a network of National Volunteer Centers and many international organizations. In 2001 the United Nations General Assembly designated the International Year of Volunteers. Mary traveled to Amsterdam to celebrate the kickoff of the International Year. She joined with thousands of volunteers from around the world to make a commitment to help address the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Part 5 - Mary's Work Around the World (continued)

Mary’s indomitable spirit comes across as you meet and interact with her. At 92, she still carries her own bags when traveling abroad, is eager to ride the motorcycle and take up every challenge with alacrity. When I first met her at the 2001 Asia Pacific IAVE Regional Conference, I was amazed both at this spirit as well as the incisive comments whenever she spoke. She congratulated us for getting in so many young people to be involved and interacted with many of the speakers, who remain charmed. Having been to every Conference, just showed her determination, drive and passion for building bridges of understanding between cultures. It was indeed my good fortune to be with her at Barcelona when we went to Gaudi’s Park Guell. Mary as the integrator, we had a lot of fun. In between cups of coffee, suddenly Mary said “you know I shook hands with Gandhi” and I practically fell off my chair, she continued, “It was in Lahore and I was sweet on one of the young men recruited by the army.” Now this was a woman who, to my mind, had done it all. We really missed her at the World Conference in India, this year 2006, where the spirit of Gandhi prevailed over the entire Conference, as does Mary whenever we all meet at IAVE. My parents have been long standing members of IAVE and all of us, including my brother and sister-in-law remember her with much fondness and hope that we will be able to be of service to further the spirit of inclusion, that makes IAVE, even after 36 years an unique organization
worldwide.”
Indira Dasgupta, People’s Institute for Development & Training, New Delhi, India

Part 6 - Mary's Work Around the World (continued)

Women’s issues have been another focus for Mary. She has served as founder member of the American Women for International Understanding, President of Los Angeles Planned Parenthood and a member of their National Board and the Borad of the Global Fund for Women.

Part 7 - The Last Word!

“A well-dressed man in a well-bottled bar in New York City was heard telling this interesting bit of history:

Oh yes, I do indeed know Mary Ripley. What a gal! Here's how we met. I was attending a conference in Cairo, that is in Egypt you know, and the place was swarming with women with causes, but one of them stood apart and above the others. She was funny; she was interesting and she was eloquent. That was Mary of course!

Well, at the end of the conference - this one on contraceptive needs, prenatal care, sex education, all the usual stuff; anyway, it seems that some enterprising person had chartered a small plane in order to get the right people over to Casablanca where the next conference had already started. There were maybe a dozen of us, Mary in the lead of course, and we took off early the next morning. We had a French pilot at the controls and a good-looking stewardess.

Well, at some point, while we were skimming over the desert, the engines started banging and the pilot told us in halting franglais, Messeurdames, it is necessaire to be dropping down, etc. He meant we had to land. He was heading for a small oasis just ahead and down in the sands.

We didn't freak, but there was some praying and then we were on the ground and the stewardess picked herself up off the floor and told us to remain calm which she wasn't and while she was yakking, Mary Ripley was at the exit door, manhandling that big handle, and the door slunk back with which the escape slide automatically inflated and there was Mary, feet first as instructed, sliding down the ladder clutching her purse. At the bottom, I saw her take out what looked like a little black address book and I saw her squinting through the date palms while calling a camel keeper over to her. He came with some trepidation due to the big bird which had landed on top of the camel dung heap, and Mary was gesticulating and the man was bobbing his head, and then he turned and ran like gazelle through the oasis.

Mary turned and called to us to "Come on down!" Within minutes, while we were navigating the slide, I saw a big black-bearded man with a magnificent turban on his head heading in Mary's direction. What do you know? Arms were flung around each other; the Sheik was kissing Mary's hand, and pretty soon our entire higgledy-piggledy group was following Mary and Sheik over the sands into his dung-roofed mansion. Seems that the Sheik and Mary had shared a vodka once in Marrakesh while discussing how contraceptives should or should not be dispensed to the Sheik's 11 wives. Mary had won the day by reminding the handsome turbaned man that if he had too many sons each one would try to replace him and it would cost him a lot of camels.

At a meal we all shared with horror that night (it included camels' eyes as a special treat), the Sheik make a remarkable toast to Mary, thanking her for hand delivering 12 dozen colored condoms to his sheikdom. Of course Mary had indeed included these important items in her carry-on bag.

Now there's one incredible, wonderful, never to be copied, woman! Here's to the one and only Mary Ripley, about whom stories are told all over the world.”
Trish Hooper, The Sequoias.