News

Celebrating 20 Years of Service

Crystal L. Snowden is celebrating 20 years of service to Volunteers of America Delaware Valley.

And she’s ready for another 20.

"I came here on July 17, 1989 as the receptionist," says Crystal, who is our Chaplain as well as the regional coordinator of our Housing and Supportive Services division.

"It doesn’t seem like 20 years. It really doesn’t," she adds. "It went by rather fast. I wasn’t sitting here wondering, ‘is it time to go home yet?’"

No wonder: Crystal was too busy to sit and ponder. Between receptionist and her current position, she’s held a wide variety of jobs across the agency.

"I’ve worked in every department," says the Williamstown, NJ resident, a married mother of two children. "I’ve done an array of different things. I graduated from receptionist to administrative assistant, I did payroll and benefits, and I was the volunteer coordinator. I also worked in behavioral health."

Gina Williams Deas, Chief Operating Officer of Volunteers of America Delaware Valley, says that Crystal "exemplifies our ministry of service. For 20 years she has reinvented herself based on the needs of this organization, going from a receptionist to our Chaplain with multiple stops in between... She has done ‘whatever it takes’ and we have been blessed by it!"

In 1996 Crystal was commissioned as a minister at Church on the Water, now located in Glassboro, NJ. "I was heavily involved in my church and my pastor saw something in me," Crystal says. "I was just doing the Lord’s work, whether I had a title or not."

Also in 1996, she was commissioned a minister of Volunteers of America. Her Ordination as a minister at Church on the Water followed in 1998.

That same year, our President and CEO Daniel L. Lombardo made a suggestion during a plane ride home from a national convention.

"Dan asked me what I thought about the becoming the Chaplain of Volunteers of America Delaware Valley. I said I thought it would be great," Crystal recalls. "It was new position, and there weren’t really any role models… (But) if you put yourself in a box, shame on you, you’ll never grow. You can’t be scared."

Describing what it’s like to work at Volunteers of America Delaware Valley, Crystal notes "there’s so much to do, and so much variety. The most rewarding part of her job is "seeing people’s lives change. When you can see someone when they’re walking in the door, and then you see them leave with that big smile on their face…I think that’s the most satisfying. And the clients who come back and say thank you. That’s so fulfilling, it makes you want to keep going.

"For another 20 years!"