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On her to-do list: make a difference

Volunteering provides the perfect antidote to retirement boredom for Millie Pagani.

By MICHELE MILLER
Published January 10, 2007

NEW PORT RICHEY - There's little doubt that Millie Pagani is pleased and impressed as she clicks her stop watch.

"Forty-eight seconds," she tells 8-year-old Sabina Ramic as the youngster finishes reading an informative piece about hair follicles titled, "What is That on Your Head?"

"Hmm, that's better than the last time. Last time was 56 seconds," Pagani says with quiet approval, then sends Sabina on her way back to the adjacent classroom.

One by one, emerging readers come to sit by her side and read aloud at the low round table. After Sabina there's Hyler Bowman, Troy Paul, Timothy DiGeorgio - and Katie Hamilton, who after completing her reading session eagerly shows off the gaping space that once held a tooth.

"So how much did you get?" Pagani asks as she peers inside.

"Two 50-cent pieces. The tooth fairy always gives me two 50-cent pieces," said Katie, 8, flashing her new smile.

It's a typical morning for Pagani, 70, who was recently named Outstanding Senior Volunteer of the Year for Pasco County. She will be honored, along with Youth Volunteer of the Year Katelyn Tucker and Adult Volunteer of the Year Kelly O'Neil, at a School Board meeting Feb. 6.

Boredom after retirement and the need to fill her "to-do" list with things that really mattered were the catalysts that launched Pagani into a volunteer stint. She signed on as an advocate for the elderly for the state of Florida and volunteered to work for the Hernando Pasco Hospice telephone bereavement program.

"That was good," she said. "But I wanted to do something for the kids."

She found that something while talking to a friend at a local gym. "I told her to come work here," said Merrily Lingafelter, who teaches second grade at Marlowe Elementary. "I can use you any time."

"I took to it like a duck to water," said Pagani.

For the past few years Pagani has shown up like clockwork each Monday, Thursday and Friday to dole out extra tutoring in subjects like math and reading.

"She's very flexible," said Lingafelter. "She really motivates students to do their best and she really cares about them."

On her days at Marlowe, Pagani treks to the picnic tables with her brown bag lunch and a few of her young charges to enjoy lunch and conversation in the Florida air.

"It's just something I like to do," said Pagani, 70, of her special lunch dates with each student. "They tell me about their family - if they have brothers and sisters. It makes them feel special."

"Students really just need that one-on-one," said Lingafelter, who nominated Pagani for the volunteer award. "Sometimes they go to her because they just need to talk to her about something. Some are going through divorce, things like that. So it's nice they have someone to talk to. I don't have the time to do that."

Pagani understands the time constraints faced by today's teachers and parents. The grandmother of five and great-grandmother of two raised her three sons as a working single mom living in the Bronx.

"It was tough," she said.

Still, she volunteered in the schools and served as PTA president. And despite a busy schedule she always managed to make sure her sons had clean fingernails and ears and food in their bellies. And she made it to all those baseball, football and track practices - even if it meant setting her hair in rollers in her car while her boys ran drills on the field.

"They all turned out great," she said. "So I guess I did something right."

"She was like a drill sergeant," said her youngest son, Darrin Cirillo, 37, who lives in Bohemia, N.Y., and insists on a daily call from his mom to hear about her day and make sure she's all right. "She ran a tight ship but she had it down. She should have been in the circus for all the things she juggled."

"What she gives these kids now is very important - something that some of them aren't getting otherwise," said Cirillo.

"I love it. I can't say enough about it," Pagani says.

But she wishes more of her peers would step up.

"I think most people are missing out if they don't at least try to work with children. Some people are intimidated by kids. They don't think they'd be good at it," she said. "But in an hour of their time they can find out how much they're needed and that they really are good at doing it."

[Last modified January 9, 2007, 22:48:41]