Tuck works to connect people with needed services
By BRETT DUNLAP, bdunlap@newsandsentinel.comPARKERSBURG - Wendy Tuck knows something about connecting people with needed services, she was done work her entire life helping to provide different types of services to people in need.
As the executive director of the Volunteer Action Center since June 2006, she is able to help link people with a number of services provided by area non-profit groups as well as provide the groups with needed space and support to do their work.
The 55-year-old Arkansas native came to the Mid-Ohio Valley in 1973 and has held a number of positions locally that has helped her learn how non-profits work and the needs these programs have as she has made this area her home.
"I have a lot of different work experiences," she said.
She has done neighborhood organizing work for Good Shepherd Church; she has done work with a housing advocacy program which helped low income people bring houses up to code; she worked at Ohio Valley Health Care Center as the assistant director of activities and worked with a lot of seniors to do things that were fun and improve their quality of life; and has done other volunteer work.
Tuck has a Bachelor's in Elementary Education from West Virginia University at Parkersburg and a Masters in Special Education from Marshall University. She did substitute teaching for a time and worked for over two years at Options, the alternative high school in Vienna, where she taught kids who were dealing with a variety of problems at home which led her to work at EVE, the domestic violence shelter in Marietta.
Tuck and her husband, Steve, have been foster parents to over 100 kids during their 31-year marriage in addition to raising three of their own.
"As we were raising our own three kids we were at the ball field every night so we had a great deal of respect for the coaches and all the parents who just show up and take care of the ball field and serve refreshments," she said. "It seems that everywhere you look, there were people who were volunteering.
"Everywhere you went, there were people who were pitching in to do what needed to be done."
Through many years of doing different things throughout the community, Tuck was a good friend of Jenny Keup, the former VAC executive director.
