Amee Colvin: ‘I can’t sit around and do nothing”
Amee Colvin is the type of person you want on your friend’s list or work team. She is outgoing, kind and considerate, intelligent and funny. Amee is the director of mission and outreach at Green Trails United Methodist Church in Chesterfield. She also teaches part-time in the communications department at St. Louis Community College at Meramec.
SHB: What type of volunteer activities do you do?
AC: I volunteer with many things associated with my church work because that’s what my church work is inspired to do. We’re helping the church and its members in the community to go out and serve. We’re inspired by the work of Jesus that through our faith, we are to serve others. I also volunteer with Home Sweet Home, the furniture bank in St. Louis, and the St. Louis Parkway Pantry that serves the Parkway School District. I’ve been motivated through the work at my church to work on food insecurity. It’s a solvable problem. It’s also an issue within a community of any size that often hides, especially if you are in an affluent community. It is so impactful and a baseline problem for people to succeed in everything else they do. If they are hungry, they’re not going to learn; if they’re hungry, they won’t be able to focus on school or be able to work well. You can’t be successful if you’re basic needs aren’t met.
Sometimes when we don’t know how to start, we don’t start, so that’s one of the motivations for me doing social media postings. Here are some places you can start; here’s how it’s easy. I’m a busy person, but I can find time to do that, or it’s important to cultivate that as a part of my life. And it’s important to share with my children. We’re supposed to take care of ourselves, but we’re supposed to serve others in the process.
I don’t serve to share with others; I serve to help others. But if I do that, to inspire others to do the same, then I think that that’s what Jesus would want me to do.
SHB: What are your hobbies?
AC: I like to cook and read. And hang out with my kids and be around my family.
SHB: What’s your personal goal in the future?
AC: I hope to travel a lot. I hope to get to the point where we are retired and get to see the world. Travel informs us and opens our minds, and we can see things from another perspective that helps us solve those other problems. Another important part of service is you see problems, but you look for solutions to solve them. Like food insecurity is a solvable issue. There is enough food to go around, so why are people hungry? You seek solutions to work yourself out of a job
SHB: Who inspires you?
AC: There’s a person I follow and that I know; her name is Heather Fleming. Heather is the president and founder of InPurpose Educational Services. It is a non-profit to help train people to understand diversity and equity in the classroom, what it means to be equitable to students, and what every student in the classroom is experiencing and helping us understand those different experiences.
Also, Betsy Reznicek started Home Sweet Home. She inspires me every day. She has worked in non-profits all her life. Betsy said we have to help people rebuild their lives, starting with furniture. Yes, we need to get them housed. People also need to have the dignity of being able to have a place to have breakfast. And a bed and a pillow. And a table and a chair. Betsy saw a problem she could solve and started a non-profit.
SHB: Is there a particular moment or memory that stands out?
AC: Moving to St. Louis 21 years ago, not knowing anybody, not having family here, and deciding I can sit around and do nothing and feel sorry for myself or start to serve. That was probably the moment that I said this is the way I’m going to live.
SHB: Is there any achievement or contribution you are most proud of?
AC: My achievement is my family. Every day is just a dream and blessing to have my family: my husband and children.
One accomplishment that stands out is during the pandemic; through the church, we provided diapers, food and things to so many places, including 20,000 diapers to another church doing weekly distributions.
SHB: What have you learned in life about being a motivator?
AC: The only motivation is to do, to serve. The only thing I can do is act. If I act, people are either motivated or demotivated by that action, I will choose to keep doing the work, and hopefully, somebody is motivated by that.