Story, photo by Steve Nash / Special Contributor to BrownwoodNews.com

EARLY – Early City Administrator Tony Aaron introduced at Tuesday’s city council meeting a new program called I Am Early, which will create a network of people who volunteer for the city.

Later, the council will solicit nominations for people to be appointed to an I Am Early board.

“We’re formalizing a volunteer program,” Aaron said. “We have a lot of people that love Early and volunteer and give free of their time. We want to be a little more thoughtful and purposeful in using those people to be blessed, and to bless the city of Early.

“So it’s creating a catalog, if you will, of the people that want to volunteer, the skills they can bring, and us helping place them where they’re going to get something back, and it’s going to help us in the right way.

Aaron described several tasks for volunteers, including mowing baseball fields or handing out goodie bags at events.”

Referring again to the many people who love the city, Aaron said the intent is to “honor their gift to Early.” They’re the people who define Early and make the city what it is, Aaron said.

A page on the city’s website will be dedicated to the program.

“On that, there’ll be information about how they can volunteer, forms to fill out so they can tell us about their skills and desires,” Aaron said. “Maybe they want to volunteer on a case-by-case basis. Maybe they want to commit to doing something once a week.

“We’ll take that information through that website and we’ll be in touch with them, and see if we can place them where they can get a benefit out of it and we can be blessed by their giving. We’ve had people that have volunteered for 30 years over the time that what we’re trying to do now is really formalize this, and look for those people that want to give, but haven’t been volunteers yet.

“So the vision would be a thriving Early where neighbors care for one another, the community spirit is strong, and everyone has an opportunity to contribute to a better future. And then the mission statement would be improving our community through what we do. I think that’s a very strong statement.”

The I Am Early name was coined by former city employee Ricky Ray, Aaron said.