YWCA’s Lifetime Achievement Award going to Eunice Hernberger

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Joe Eberle/staff photographer NEVER TOO OLD TO GIVE: Eunice Hernberger is this year’s YWCA of Niagara Lifetime Achievement Award winner for her decades of service to the community as a volunteer in local history, arts and faith-based organizations. At age 96, she’s still an active member of the Town of Royalton, Niagara County and North German Settlement historical societies, the Federation of Historical Societies, the Kenan Arts Council, the Dale Association and Lockport Theatre Organ Society, as well as St. Mary’s Church.

June 18, 2011

By Joyce M. Miles joyce.miles@niagara-gazette.com Niagara Gazette The Niagara Gazette Sat Jun 18, 2011, 10:46 PM EDT

NIAGARA FALLS — LOCKPORT — Few are more familiar with the past century’s local history than Eunice Hernberger.

From the transformation of country lanes to state highways, rural electrification and central schooling to ways of life lost to progress, Hernberger knows things you won’t read in any textbook, and she shares her insights in the first person.

The longtime member of four local historical societies says their leaders look to her frequently for program ideas and fact checking.

And why wouldn’t they? At 96 years old, Hernberger is a resident expert in trends and changes.

“The historical societies come to me all the time. That’s because nothing’s as old as me,” she says.

Hernberger of Lockport has been named the YWCA of Niagara’s 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award winner for her decades of volunteer work with history associations, faith-based outreaches, including the National Council of Christians and Jews and the National Council of Catholic Women, and arts booster groups, including the Kenan Arts Council and the Lockport Theatre Organ Society. So moved are others by her giving spirit, she’s been an Eagles’ Citizen of the Year and a Rotary Club Paul Harris Fellow.

Hernberger has been pretty much a full-time volunteer in the community for more than 50 years, ever since she gave up her bookkeeping job at the Heinz plant in Medina to be Edward Hernberger’s wife. Even now, as a member of the Dale Association’s “over-90 group,” she has a date to keep nearly every day.

Admittedly some of her dates are with doctors she didn’t used to need, but tending to her causes, and the friends she’s made through them over the years, remain her reason for rising cheerfully each day.

“I still can’t say no (to volunteering), as long as I can get a ride,” she said. “It’s helped me live an enjoyable life; I’ve made friends almost all across the world.”

The YWCA of Niagara Board of Trustees recognize women who’ve spent a lifetime contributing to their community with the Lifetime Achievement Award winner, explains YWCA Executive Director Kathleen Granchelli.

“Eunice Hernberger is the epitome of that award, that’s for sure,” Granchelli said. “The board could not find a better candidate to honor than her.”

Announcement of the Lifetime Achievement Award winner serves as the kickoff of the YWCA’s annual Niagara Awards program, in which community members are invited to nominate notable women of Niagara County.

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