Shirley Statler is a Muskogee grandmother who has volunteered a great deal of her time squeezed into pixie-sized chairs at Sadler Elementary.

She’s graded papers, run fundraisers, separated shoes for the school play and many other simple tasks, but the work she does with children is what truly motivates her.

“Sometimes you touch a child’s life,” Statler said. “I really believe that when we give our time to a child, they’ll always remember it.”

Statler’s been part of the Sadler Parent Teacher Organization. But it’s only part of her volunteerism. She devotes many hours to the classroom each week as well.

She’s read books with struggling readers, helped study spelling words and sat with an unruly child or two over the years.

“Even if you’re up there taking an hour’s worth of menial work away from the teacher, the teacher has time to concentrate on the important things like teaching,” she said.

She also believes children bloom under the attention they receive from adult volunteers.

When her oldest grandson was young he felt like having Grandma around gave him some bragging rights, Statler said.

Everyone knew her at her grandson’s school, from teachers to students, and he liked it.

That good feeling doesn’t always last though, she said.

“When kids get up in junior high they think, ‘Oh gosh, here comes Grandma’,” Statler said. “But you keep doing it because you know there’s work that the teachers need to get done.”

Janie Wester, mother of twins entering Muskogee’s 7th & 8th Grade Center, doesn’t count the cost of volunteering either.

She’s president of the PTO and spent her children’s elementary years substitute teaching, working in the office and doing anything she could to help, she said.

It’s always good to be a familiar face at school, Wester said, and she believes it’s important to help teachers as much as possible too.

“If you’re going to take the time to be there for you own kids, and other kids get to know you, it shows that you care,” she said.

Those tasks that volunteers like Statler and Wester perform can equal benefits to school children in dollar amounts, according to Project Appleseed, a national campaign to get adult volunteers into the classroom.

Nationwide, if every public school student had at least one family member volunteer 10 hours, the minimum dollar benefit to children and schools would be $17 billion in volunteer capacity.

That’s more than the $14 billion Congress approved in Title I stimulus funds, Project Appleseed says.

Reach Wendy Burton at 684-2926 or wburton @muskogeephoenix.com.