April is Global Volunteer Month, and at Portland'5 we have a lot fantastic people who give their time to help ensure everyone that comes through the doors of our venues has a fantastic and memorable experience. You may know their from attending a performance. Here's the chance to get to know some of them a little more. Please give a round of applause for our featured volunteers.
Una Beth Westfall
This is Una Beth’s 21st year volunteering with Portland’5. She is one of the organization’s longest-tenured volunteers and has served as a member of our Volunteer Advisory Committee. She has had many great experiences over the years from working Broadway plays at Keller Auditorium to being exposed to a unique form of puppetry unlike anything she had seen before at Winningstad Theatre. Naturally, a highlight from her time as a volunteer was seeing these two worlds merge as a greeter during the tour of The Lion King. The puppetry performances at the Winningstad also introduced her to Portland’5 student performances, where local youth fill the theatres during the day to experience the performing arts, many for their very first time. She loves seeing the kids lighting up as they enter the space, and the level of excitement they bring when they exit, talking joyously about their experiences.
She is grateful that being a volunteer has helped grow her experience and knowledge around arts, literature and sciences. “I attend things I would NEVER go to without volunteering. It really expands my horizons.” She loves getting to see her fellow volunteers who share a love for supporting the arts and helping patrons. Her passion for the work and the team inspired her to join the advisory committee. This not only allowed her to contribute even more to the volunteer team but to get to know Portland’5 ushers and other staff whom she had worked alongside previously but not had the opportunity to connect with on a deeper level. “Being a member of the core is a privilege. There are such interesting and great people that come together to help support the arts and make patrons’ experiences positive. It’s such a treat!”
Una Beth believes there are many reasons why it is important to volunteer. She sees it as an opportunity to give back to the community and foster the arts in the Portland area but also a way to widen social circles and expand her artistic horizons. Through volunteering she learned that some abstract artforms like ballet are accompanied by talks from historians about the meaning of the performance, which has given her a new appreciation of the artform. She appreciates that she gets to be exposed to new things while giving back to the community. “Volunteering gives me direction and purpose for attending many outings that I would not otherwise have.”
Ambar Jain
Ambar originally planned to become a Portland’5 volunteer in 2020 but her journey was put on pause due to the pandemic. She has now been a volunteer for a year and a half and does it to honor the memory of a friend.
Ambar’s former co-worker Debbie introduced her to the Portland’5 volunteer program. She was unfamiliar with Portland’5 at the time but Debbie raved about her experience volunteering with the organization and that inspired Ambar to sign up. She submitted her application and in 2020 was scheduled for her first training. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic that training was cancelled. Around the same time, she had to travel to India and when she returned, Covid had fully broken out. Tragically during that period, Debbie unexpectedly passed away. When the venue doors, and volunteer program re-opened, Ambar signed up again, went through the training and became a volunteer, for Debbie.
Prior to her experience as a volunteer, Ambar would bring her daughter to The Nutcracker but that was more-or-less the extent of her experience attending the arts at Portland’5 venues. Through volunteering she has been introduced to many types of performing arts. She loves story-based performances like musicals and dramatic plays, and thanks her time as a volunteer for expanding her cultural knowledge.
Ambar has not only learned from the performances and events she has experienced but from her fellow volunteers. “Everybody is very nice. I am amazed at how good and selfless they are. The learning I have gotten from other volunteers and my mentors in the program has been very rewarding.”
She has been volunteering her time for as long as she can remember, and when she came to the U.S. she was amazed at how people helped her through and through. Ambar believes that volunteering is a way to give back to the community what you are getting out of it. “Not everyone can donate money. This is a way to give what you can via time.”
While Ambar originally applied to the Portland’5 volunteer program because of Debbie and reapplied to honor her memory, her experience with the organization has been uniquely her own. She has expanded her knowledge, grown her community, and had a lot of fun along the way. She says she owes it all to her friend.
Dr. Jeanne Barnett
Jeanne has been volunteering with Portland’5 since 2017 after having recently moved to Portland. Music has always been a part of Jeanne’s life, so the draw to volunteering at the venues was a natural one. She is part of a family of musicians, with her mother, who was a music major in college having taught her how to sing in grade school, and her son being a college violinist. Jeanne has sung in Sweet Adelines and while studying for her PhD in Molecular Virology she was a member of Duke’s philharmonic chorus. “Music, math and science go together. There’s a pattern to things. Even though music is creative it still has logic to it.”
Her best memories as a volunteer come from student and youth events. After one show, she was really touched when a girl of about 5 years old looked at her and said “That’s the BEST performance I’ve ever seen!” It’s not just the little ones that have made a spot on Jeanne’s list of top memories. She also remembers how moved she felt to see a room full of middle schoolers give a standing ovation to a photographer who spoke during a National Geographic Live! Performance, and the impact felt when she attended an event where young artists created animations that paired with music being played by youth symphony musicians. She thought it was wonderful to see the work of these budding artists come together in the beauty of Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
Jeanne volunteers with Portland’5 to help support the venues, to build community and to have something to do during retirement. Although it is just one of many things she does with her time. When she’s not at the venues she travels the world with her husband, enjoys her membership to the Japanese Garden and explores Portland’s pub scene.
A fun fact about Jeanne is that she can be spotted in Natalie Wood’s final movie “Brainstorm.” The Duke choir was used in the background of the film and Jeanne was positioned right in front of the camera. She said she had no idea until someone she had never met came up to her and said they recognized her from the film.
Doug Killian
Doug is one of the newest Portland’5 Centers for the Arts volunteers, having joined in September of 2024. He became a volunteer because he wanted to support the arts, particularly during the challenging time following the pandemic.
He loves seeing the warm, smiling faces of patrons in the venues, a particularly nice switch from the atmosphere he experienced previously while working for 27 years in an adversarial court system. It turns out the interactions a person experiences as a performing arts volunteer are quite different from ones experienced as a public defender. As a fan of musicals and theatrical performances and exchanging pleasantries, Doug has found a good home in Portland’5.
He finds happiness through the arts and through helping others. He knows how important performing arts are to the community; while acknowledging how heavily they depend on volunteers and sponsors, which is why thinks it is important to donate time. “I’m far too stingy with my money but I’m generous with my time.”
He’s quite generous in fact. Portland’5 is not the only organization lucky enough to have Doug as a volunteer. He also volunteers as a greeter at The Broadway Rose Theatre in Tigard, Hillsboro Hops minor league baseball games, and at a project for the homeless in downtown Portland. He is a man dedicated to giving back to his community. “If I can bring a little joy into someone’s life, that brings joy into my life.”
Doug doesn’t just go the extra mile with his volunteering, for 40 years he did it with his feet, retiring in 2023 after 15 marathons and 40 years of jogging. When he is not at Portland’5 or his other volunteer gigs, you can find Doug on the hiking trail, taking courses from Oregon State University or visiting his daughters in San Francisco with his wife.
Elaine Winters
For Elaine, volunteering is more than a hobby, it’s built into her DNA. She has been a volunteer with Portland’5 since 2011 but her history with service started well before that. After completing grad school, Elaine joined the Peace Corps, which took her to countries around the world. She was exposed to starving communities in developing nations, she learned teaching techniques, and she brought the experience and perspective she gained with her back to the U.S. “Once you’ve seen starving conditions, you don’t forget it.”
Originally from Brooklyn, NY, the same district as Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Elaine holds a strong work ethic and a “get it done” attitude. She believes in saying “yes” to challenges, working hard to serve others and create change. She sees volunteering as not just a choice but a pivotal role that anyone who is able should take on. “It’s important for the community that there is a pool of people willing to give their time. It’s our responsibility.”
Elaine has a “basket of best memories” from her time volunteering with Portland’5 but some of her fondest come from working the student performances and events that welcome young audiences into our spaces. “The most important thing about theater is the next generation,” she said before sharing stories of adorable young dancers attending the ballet in their tutus, seeing children come into the theaters with awe on their faces, and talking with young attendees about it not only being their first time experiencing live theater but for many, their first time in a theater at all. Some children have told her that they have never even been to a movie theater, let alone a full stage production in a space as elaborate at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. She understands the huge impact these moments have for children and is thrilled to be a part of them.
When not at Portland’5, Elaine takes classes at PSU, and volunteers with her building community. She views life as a series of choices and believes that all who have the ability should find areas that interest them within the community that need support and not wait to be invited but instead make the choice to step in and volunteer.