Every Day Is Christmas

More than 20 years ago, Fowler-Turner left a job as an accountant's assistant with the Washington Lung Association to become director of volunteer programs and services at St. Ann's Infant and Maternity Home in Hyattsville. The center is home to more than 40 children and to mothers from their early teens to mid-20s and their babies who need a safe, welcoming place to stay and learn parenting skills. It serves as an orphanage, emergency shelter for abused children, adoption agency, training center for young mothers and day-care program.

When Fowler-Turner saw the job advertisement in this newspaper two decades ago, she knew she had to apply. She loved working with children and wanted to help people directly. But she was almost passed over. Her interviewers were concerned that the salary would be too low, the job not high-powered enough, and that she wouldn't stay long. But with her marketing and public relations background, along with a certification in volunteer management, she knew she could help, and St. Ann's agreed.

She was looking for fulfillment, and she found it. And St. Ann's found an organized go-getter. She used her business contacts to construct the first organized volunteer efforts at the home and to help raise money.

Her talent is used to oversee volunteer recruitment and get donations. She spends much of her time speaking at local colleges and corporations about St. Ann's needs. Some of those colleges have organized volunteer programs or scholarships for St. Ann's mothers. Fowler-Turner said some of St. Ann's moms have graduated from Trinity, Catholic University, Georgetown University, George Washington University and Bowie State University.

At Christmastime, she works the hardest to get her companies, volunteers and new groups to help make the mothers' and children's Christmases better. Most of the organizations she speaks with throw parties for the children, complete with presents. Others donate money to bring the kids out to recreational and other events. "They get an abundance," said Fowler-Turner, who has 129 active volunteers and up to 400 volunteers throughout the year.

But dropping everything to work for a nonprofit such as St. Ann's isn't something everyone can do, she warned. She is still paid in the low $30,000s, and as a single mother of two children, now grown, that was not always easy. She has always held down one or two part-time jobs so she could hang on to this one. "I may not have been paid much money. . . . I thought I was meant to be here, to use my talent," she said.

Her advice to those who think they want to move into a world like hers: "Do something that you really know you want to do. There can't be an issue about money. We have just as much qualified people as anyone in the corporate world, but there are less funds here. So make sure it's an interest and not just a moment."

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If you can't make that good work a full-time career, or don't want to, no problem. There is always time for a good cause after your day of paper pushing is over. Including tomorrow: Come to the D.C. Jewish Community Center to help prepare meals for 1,000 homeless people or help paint a shelter. (Hurry up, registration for tomorrow's efforts at http://washingtondcjcc.org/volunteer ends this afternoon.)

You can read more about St. Ann's -- and what the home needs -- at http://www.stanns.org.