In the town of Centerville, Iowa—population 5,400—people know that if they need volunteer help, they can call on Veronica Stober.Stober, manager of credit and collections at Alliant Energy, says that as someone who grew up in a small town, jumping in to help a neighbor or a friend is just what you do. “It’s always just been important to me as an individual to be a good citizen and to give back to our community,” she said. “Especially because we’re such a small community, little things make a big difference in our community.”
That sense of giving back became even stronger once she joined the Girl Scouts. “I was a Girl Scout all the way from first grade until I was a sophomore in high school,” she said. “The Girl Scout promise even states ‘to help people at all times.’”
Now, as an adult, Stober says she volunteers at least 10 hours a month for a variety of causes. Her roles are both big and small: She, along with her husband, a former Boy Scout, have volunteered their time as Scout leaders, for example. She helps at local events, such as a children’s art festival and other Main Street events. She and her family also regularly place flags on veterans’ graves on Memorial Day or stay to clean up trash and litter after town festivals and parades.
Stober also was part of the team that served a world-record number of pancakes—14,280—during the PACT (Promoting Appanoose & Centerville Together) Annual Pancake Breakfast, which celebrated its 73rd anniversary in 2022. And she was an inaugural volunteer with the monthly Centerville Mobile Food Pantry, which is sponsored by Alliant Energy and has now become the area’s largest such food pantry.
Stober also sees her role at Alliant as an extension of her goal to help others. “A lot of customers don’t realize they have options available to them, whether that’s a payment arrangement or getting financial assistance with their bill,” she said. “We’re putting people in touch with the right resources to help them get back to a good place in their lives.”
Stober encourages people—wherever they live—to get out into their community and volunteer. “Even if you can only do an hour, that’s going to help someone somewhere, and you’re really going to feel the payoff. What I tend to see with the volunteers I organize is they come back time after time because they realize what a great feeling it gives them and how rewarding it is.”
She added, “For me, I’m giving something back to a community that I have a lot of investment in, with my family living here and my friends and my neighbors. They’re always willing to help me, and I want to make sure I’m willing to help them, too.”