Volunteer work proves to be rewarding, teaches importance of impressing on the future generations

Ask Mount Olive Friends of the Parks President Tony Martin about his 40 years of volunteer work, particularly where Mount Olive’s parks are concerned, and he quickly deflects the limelight away from himself and shine it onto others.

He agrees that people might consider him to be the public face and voice for Mount Olive Friends of the Parks, but that it is only because of the work and support of other volunteers.

Martin traces his start in volunteerism to 1984 while serving as president of the Kenansville Jaycees. He served two terms in that role.

He also credits the influence of his late father, Wilbert Martin.

“My dad really influenced me a lot in helping people and being a part of the community,” Martin said. “He was always involved in church activities, not just his home church, but churches throughout the community with fundraisers.

“If a family lost their home through fire, or storm, he was always right there in fundraisers. He was also involved with raising dogs and horses and animals. That taught me a lot of things about being involved with those things which led to being a member of associations.”

While serving as Jaycees president, Martin was asked to serve on committees with the Duplin County Board of Education. He served on Wayne County Board of Education committees, too.

Meeting people through the Jaycees and those committees, Martin was asked to help with entertainment promotions for the Duplin County Agribusiness Council.

He also helped with entertainment promotions for the Duplin County Fair and other organizations around the county.

“I guess those things combined are what made me good at organizing functions, activities, fundraising,” Martin said.

Those other volunteer roles have included 13 years as president of the Eastern N.C. Christmas Tree Growers; 11 years on the Tri-County Electric Membership Corp. Credentials Committee; Mount Olive Parks and Recreation Advisory Board; Home Health and Hospice Care (3HC) fundraising committee for the Butterflies Wings program; 3HC Children’s Camp and Patient Support.

Martin has many memories from his nearly 40 years of volunteering including an impromptu wrestling match.

During his time with the Kenansville Jaycees, the club sponsored and organized NWA wrestling matches at Kenan Auditorium in Kenansville. Martin met some of the famous wrestlers and hung out with them in the locker room.

At one of the matches the crew had finished setting up the ring and naturally, Martin had to climb into it.

As he was bouncing off the ropes and jumping on the mat some of the wrestlers began to come in. One climbed into the ring with him, asking Martin what he thought.

“I said, ‘I thought it (floor) would be harder than this,’” Martin said. “The wrestler and I started play wrestling for a news reporter who was there to do a story. The next thing I know, the wrestler grabs me around my neck and shoulders, spun me around about twice and slung me across the ring.

“I did a face down belly-plop that nearly knocked the breath out of me. Everyone laughed, except me.”

The wrestler asked Martin what he thought about the ring now.

Martin’s response, “It feels a little harder now — that hurt.”

The wrestler laughed and walked away.

For years Martin, who just turned 60, ran his own salon on North Breazeale Avenue— his back yard was adjacent to Westbrook Park. He is now process safety manager at Case Farms.

“With the work schedule I have now with Case Farms that (volunteering with the parks) is about all that I can do,” he said of his time spent volunteering. “My wife and I have some properties we have to look after, and a farm, too. That keeps us busy and at 60 years old, I am trying to push it (volunteering) back a little bit.”

His work with the Kids World Playground at Westbrook Park is the biggest project he has been involved with, Martin said.

That project, along with work done at Nelson Street Park, are things that will be there for a long, long time, and that is a good feeling, he added.

However, being considered the face of Friends of the Parks has meant times when Martin has been spoken to in some very unkind ways by people who have complaints even if it is an issue unrelated to the nonprofit’s mission.

“But I always look at it as this person is concerned about something at the park, and we make the best of it and with our board members and other volunteers we have tried to correct the problem,” he explained.

He has even invited people with complaints to attend Friends of the Parks board meetings to discuss an issue and help work and/or find ways to fund raise to resolve an issue.

“We started out with an idea to build up the park,” Martin said of his involvement with Friends of the Parks.

It started, he said, with a conversation with civic leaders Patti O’Donoghue and Julie Beck about building a playground.

That led into forming committees with participation from business leaders and University of Mount Olive officials.

“Bringing all of those faces together is what started the push to get that playground fixed,” he said. “We had a lot of success in putting committees together and bringing the people we needed together with lots of different skill sets.

“Some had carpentry skills. Some had business skills, marketing skills, child care — all of those things. As Julie in the beginning told us we were going to need 1,000 volunteers.”

Some of those initially involved kind of laughed about that number and questioned where would they ever find that many, he added.

But that 1,000 came together over a period of one to one and a half years, Martin said.

“It came together, and it came together well,” he said. “I made good friends and people that I have stayed in touch with. They worked hard. Those people who have names on bricks, names on pickets (at the playground) — they were there helping and have continued to be over the past 25 years.

“But there are a lot of people whose names are not on the pickets or bricks that have been part of it.”

It was entertaining at times watching the volunteers trying to learn how to drive a nail or apply stain for the first time, he said.

During the work on the Kids World Playground, Martin worked on fundraising and was a construction captain.

Martin took nine days off of work, as did many others, to prepare for the build, complete the build and close down the build and move everything off the site in time for the opening ceremony.

Since his work on Kids World, Martin has served as a construction captain for the Kenansville community to help build a similar park there.

Martin also has been an advisor on the construction of other playgrounds.

“Through all of this I have met some very generous, selfless people ready to make a safe and joyous place for children to play and grow,” he said.

Martin has been a member of the nonprofit Mount Olive Friends of the Parks board for almost 25 years having served as president since 2011. He is the only remaining member of those who first came together to form the nonprofit in 2000.

He took on the role of president at the request of the late former Mayor Ruff Huggins from whom Martin said he learned a lot including about business, how to handle people and being a part of the community.

Martin’s father also was active with Friends of the Parks serving on its initial board and doing volunteer work at Westbrook and Nelson Street parks.

Wilbert Martin served on the Construction Committee building Kids World, and he along with Huggins, Doug Courchene and Shelton Blanton did work in the parks for many years, Martin said.

“I learned a lot from those men, too — how to do things, fix things,” Martin added. “A lot of what has made me be able to do a lot of the things I can do now is by watching and learning through all of those experiences from the time I was in my 20s until today being 60.

“I still learn every day, and it makes it where I can help others, teach others.”

That includes Martin’s daughter, Amberley Martin Davis, who has joined him on the Friends of the Parks board.

“She was five or six years old when we started planning Kids World,” he added. “She was out there with the Children’s Committee painting, cleaning up — things that kids six and seven years old would do. Now, she is on the board for Friends of the Parks.”

Martin said his time with Friends of the Parks has been entertaining and fun, but that he is time with the organization is probably coming to an end.

He said he would, however, still be there to provide support and do his part as a past president.

“That is my goal,” he said.

It is a goal he has had in the past, but it was always pushed aside to complete another project.

And there is one more goal he wants to complete before stepping down — the extension of the Pickle Train depot.

“I do want to say to everyone: stay tuned to the FOTP, become a member because the year 2025 is the 25th anniversary of Kids World,” Martin said. “This will be a great year.

“We will be celebrating throughout the year. We will be opening the FOTP time capsule located underground at Kids World Playground. Come join us. Come be a Friend (of the Parks). We do what we do for the children.”

Martin attributes much of the credit for the success of Friends of the Parks to Josh Phillips, Mount Olive Parks and Recreation director. Phillips also served on the nonprofit’s board of directors.

“He is a great friend to me,” Martin said. “Josh has always supported me as president and has stood right beside me in everything I and the FOTP have done.

“I appreciate him and his dedication to our parks and the children who play there.”

In volunteering over the years with Duplin County and Wayne County public schools as his children started at school at Carver Elementary School, Mount Olive Middle School and Southern Wayne High School, Martin served on the PTSO and Advisory Board.

“Volunteering as an advisor and fundraising for and within the school system meant a lot to me because we, as volunteers, were doing something that we knew would go directly to helping the children,” he said. “I had so many great experiences and have fond memories.”

Those memories include watching as children he first saw as kindergartners or first-graders go all the way through school and beyond to become successful and prosperous adults and parents.

“I watched those kids play at the playground,” he said. “Now I see them as adults bring their children to the playground. A lot of us who were parents of those elementary kids are now bringing their grandchildren to the park.

“It is great to see all these generations be involved and continue to be able to use the park.”

Also, it is important to impress upon those new generations the importance of volunteerism, Martin added.

Friends of the Parks and the parks would not be what they are without volunteers and people who have a desire to help others, he continued.

There have been times when it has been difficult pulling enough volunteers together, Martin said. However, during last March’s workday at Kids World Playground more than 120 volunteers showed up to help, he continued.

That came together in less than a month,” he said.

Martin continued, “It is important that families teach kindness and selflessness — to be able to help others because if as generations go, and we don’t continue to support others and help others even when it is not convenient for us sometimes or not the best time for us to do it — that is the most important time to come out help others so there will be safe places for children to play; so there will be libraries stocked with books; so there will be churches where people can go and fellowship; and places where kindness will always be there and helping others will always be there.

“We can’t lose that. We can’t lose that. It is my hope that individuals, families and businesses continue to support charities and nonprofits. I hope that moms and dads for many years to come will continue to instill in their children the need to and the value of helping others; the need for volunteering and being part of the simple act of helping others.”