Vickey Wilcher recounted the day her car quit in a busy downtown Martinsburg intersection during rush hour. The Washington transplant readied herself for the cursing and rude hand gestures she expected from other drivers. Instead, people actually stopped and offered to help. Wilcher could recall that type of small-town kindness in her original home of Roanoke, VA, but over 20 years in the nation's capitol had left it as a distant memory.

Years as a political consultant in the pressure-cooker of local DC politics resulted in a need to "quiet my life," as Wilcher put it. She owned a rental house in the Panhandle, and when her tenant decided to move out, she took it as a sign that it was time to make a change. She would still be close enough to see her friends and to commute to Washington if she had to.

For the past year, Wilcher has served as Executive Director of CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of the Eastern Panhandle, an organization that advocates for children in foster care who have been removed from their homes due to abuse and/or neglect. Although a 20-member board provides support, Wilcher and her two Volunteer Coordinators comprise the actual staff. Their primary responsibility is to recruit and train CASA volunteers.

Wilcher explained that CASA volunteers gather information that helps the Department of Health and Human Resources and the courts find the best permanent homes for the children. This includes reviewing records and interviewing family members, teachers, medical professionals, therapists and others who can provide valuable input. Volunteers also visit the children regularly and observe their situations.

About 200 children are removed from their home every year in the Berkeley/Jefferson/Morgan County area, and the number of active cases is fluid at any given time. CASA volunteers are assigned only one or two cases at a time, and a case might involve more than one child removed from a particular home. The average case lasts about a year.

"Right now we have just 34 volunteers for about 80 kids," said Wilcher. "Our goal is to have one volunteer for each child, so we need a pool of 100 to 125 volunteers at all times."

Wilcher advised that volunteers need no particular background, but they must be over 21 with no criminal record. "Our screening process is very thorough," she said. "They should just have an authentic desire to help the kids and a commitment to stay until the child is placed."

"This is not Big Brothers and Big Sisters," she emphasized, "where you go places and have fun with the kids. It's more emotionally intense and constant. At the least, we are altering children's lives, and we could even be saving their lives."

Regularly scheduled volunteer training takes place twice a year. However, Wilcher's office offers an independent studies program tailored to the needs of the volunteers so that they don't have to wait for the twice-yearly classes. They can take material home and come in once a week for about two hours to work with a Volunteer Coordinator. They are finished at the end of four weeks and are then sworn in by a judge as an officer of the court.

Volunteers often come from the ranks of the retired, but Wilcher stressed that working people can and do serve. "Much of the work can be done by phone and e-mail," she said, "and contacts can be arranged to suit the volunteer."

She wants to diversify the volunteer pool, with people of all ages, races and ethnic groups. She also wants to see a "partners program" with volunteers teamed up with their significant others. "Usually one of the parents isn't very nice, and all the kids see are bad examples," said Wilcher. "I want the children to see that men and women can operate together in a loving way."

Attracting young volunteers is especially important to Wilcher. She noted that a great majority of the cases involve substance abuse, and the parents are usually very young with two or three children. "I'd like to have volunteers that show kids a different kind of young people. The terrible situations the children are taken from affect them into adulthood. When they see a young person who is caring and successful in life, it gives them hope for their own lives."

Wilcher finds the work of getting volunteers and matching them with kids rewarding. She says that CASA restored her faith in herself as a helpful person.

She enjoys the slower pace of living she's found since leaving the city. However, she does miss the restaurants. It's been hard for her to get used to the fact that restaurants in small towns close on the days and at the times when they are not doing much business.

"I love good food," she said, "and I'd like to be able to find a restaurant that I like that is open whenever I go there. I find a restaurant I like, and I go there and they're closed!"

If you have about four hours to spare a week and would like to be a CASA volunteer, you can call Vickey Wilcher at 304-263-5100 or e-mail her at: vickey@casaep.org

"We need volunteers!" she said. "We need them now!"