When Cathie Meetre arrived at the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival’s opening ceremony last year, she was in for quite a shock. She was thinking her family was inviting her for an evening out for dinner when in reality she was to receive the 2024 Outstanding Citizen award. Now a year later, she reflects on the humor of it all with a characteristic wit that may have something to do with her British origins. “I was bamboozled,” she says of the way her family got her to join them that night while keeping her in the dark.
“They promised me dinner with my children and my grandchildren at the Festival,” she remembers. With her family living over 50 miles away and not often in town she thought it was odd that they’d decided to come all the way for dinner so she was “90 percent surprised” when she found out. She adjusts herself in her seat at a desk in the Greenbelt News Review newsroom. Shaded windows span the length of the wall and filter in light that catches the highlights in her hair and her eyelashes. They keep the shades down because of how strong the sun is, she explains. What follows are her responses to questions about the award and her reflections on what it means to serve.
What was your reaction to being selected?
I was quite struck by it, stunned that it happened. I felt delighted because mostly I try to keep behind the scenes. I don’t strut around claiming credit for things. It was very a rming that the things I’d done for many years had been noticed, had added up to something in people’s minds. I think I’m a born volunteer. I felt my help was needed so I ought to help.
Tell us more about helping.
Some feel shy and some don’t feel as strong a pull to help. Recognition of an Outstanding Citizen does set an example for other people. It gives them some sort of reference for doing public service, whatever that public service is. And it’s often quite different for di erent people. I feel it’s an encouragement to people to help, but I don’t think anybody helps just to be the outstanding citizen. It really didn’t cross my mind. The newspaper has a league of outstanding citizens. Like Mary Lou Williamson [editor of the Greenbelt News Review].
How are you staying young? Is it related to service?
Oh, I think it is. It’s about staying busy, staying engaged, having to learn new things to keep up. I’ve learned new technologies. I post things on the website, design things, do a lot of quite sophisticated work with Excel. I just figured if it was possible you can find out how to do it. I just bang around until I find something in the right direction. It’s a quest. What have you been doing since receiving the award? The same things I was doing before. I do a lot of background work for the News Review in a business sense, in a process sense. How to organize ourselves more effectively, how to strategize. Whatever is necessary to help make decisions. I write proposals for nonprofit groups. I’ve done that for the Co-op, News Review and Farmers Market. Advice for volunteers? When you volunteer to help, you’re perhaps more effective if you volunteer to do the work you know how to do. But I think you should also look to see what’s needed and see how you can do that, even if it’s something you don’t necessarily feel attuned to do. If an organization needs clerical support, do that even if it’s not your favorite thing. It’s just as affirming, even more so, because it’s for the greater good. You can have fun while giving service because the fun might be at right angles to other things you’re engaged in. You can have fun with the people and you can make a difference. You can change the way things are done. You can make them better. We use a lot less work to get a paper out than was once the case. No one’s here till midnight anymore as they used to be.
If you could add something to Greenbelt, what would it be?
I wouldn’t add an institution; I would change an attitude perhaps. If more people volunteered, that would connect them better with the city and their neighbors. If they live here and work here and don’t engage with the community, they don’t realize how much they’re missing, how much more engaged they would be in life. If you don’t put something in you don’t get anything much out. That’s kind of my view of life. Even if it’s only two hours a month, you probably have time to do that.
Who should be next?
So many possibilities, from the News Review, Farmers Market, the Rays on the Roof Campaign.
What do you do just for fun? Have you experienced anything new or different?
Becoming a great-grandmother. So there’s that. I can ski and I can ride a bike. We go to Europe and cycle from city to city along small roads. In fact, I’m giving a talk to the Golden Agers in October about how to do a cycle trip in Europe when you’re no longer 25. I’ve actually written some books. The one that may get published is a children’s book for the 9-to-12-year-old age group, based on a local story. In 2005 a car came o the road on Powder Mill and went down into a chasm, a drainage ditch where you couldn’t see it from the road. Fortunately, it didn’t rain enough to fill up the ditch. A man finally emerged a week later from the car. He had been unconscious and concussed, but finally climbed out on the eighth day. A woman and her daughter picked him up; people had been hunting for him for a week. In my story he’s helped to survive by the animals. The other one is a mystery story about a guy who was murdered in a vacuum chamber in Goddard Space Flight Center.
Nominate the Next Outstanding Citizen
Do you know someone who quietly strengthens Greenbelt through service, creativity or leadership? The Outstanding Citizen Award is your chance to shine a light on a neighbor who makes a difference. It’s an opportunity to honor those who give their time, heart and energy to making Greenbelt outstanding.
Nominations close on Monday, July 28. See the nomination form on page 9 of the July 17 issue.
