Lee schools honor thousands of teachers

More than 16,000 volunteers from throughout the Lee County School District were honored at South Fort Myers High.

Organizers of the show, which honored 16,602 volunteers in the district, showed them their appreciation for having saved the district more than $15 million dollars last year.

"We can't pay for what they do. They do so many good things for kids,," said Dr. Marie Dinon, the volunteer coordinator for the district. "They do the individual things that make a difference."

The difference is not only measured in the time they spend at area schools, it's about the value of those hours.

"You never really know what affect you have on people and because of the volunteers, these kids get opportunities they normally wouldn't," said James Browder, the superintendent of schools to a group of staff members representing each school.

The schools that received the volunteer awards were divided into two categories: golden and silver.

Golden schools are those meeting a standard in having adult volunteers in the school. Silver awards were for secondary schools where older students volunteer to help younger kids for at least half an hour for every student that is in the school.

"If you took all the work of volunteers and use the Department of Labor average hourly rate for non-agricultural workers, the average salary times the number of hours that we have is a lot," said Dinon about how the monetary value is figured out based on the hours recorded at each school.

The golden and silver awards are from Department of Education that is not locally based.

"The very fact that the school owns it is that they are proud of their volunteers and are looking for recognition for their volunteers," Dinon said.

And because the number of volunteers has grown over the years, the show's winners continue to grow.

"In 2001, we had 6, 000 hours and every year it's really pumping up," Dinon said. "Peoples awareness is increasing as to how important they are and in what they can give back to our students."