AARP Florida Honors Susan Traylor as Top Volunteer for 2015

“Could you please hold? I’m giving someone a flu shot,” Susan Traylor asks. It was with these words we know why Traylor is the Florida recipient of the 2015 Andrus Award for Community Service. She was stopping by to run an errand and was asked to help out. “I have a hard time saying ‘No.’”

Each year the 53 AARP state offices honor the volunteers who share their experience, talents, and skills to enrich the lives of others.

A registered for nurse for more years than she can remember, Susan is deeply embedded in the Palm Harbor and Tarpon Springs communities helping at-risk seniors, veterans, and the homeless.

Susan, and her husband, Ed, had friends in the area, so they would spend six months in Florida and six in Cleveland, where she would earn enough money to return to Florida continue her mission. They became permanent Florida residents in 2009.

Ed died earlier this year, and Susan continues to volunteer to honor him.

During her six-month stints, Susan paired up with Dr. Frederick Roever, and for more than 25 years, they would do community medicine. She recalled that during one flu season they together dispensed more than 1,700 flu shots to at risk persons. Shortly after, Dr. Roever died in a house fire. Susan has been successful carrying on Dr. Roever’s legacy, along side the doctor’s daughter who took over his practice.

“I don’t have to understand why He took Fred, why He took my husband this year.” This year she’s lost 22 clients but says she is blessed for having them in her life. “We need to help people get back on their road.”

“It’s where God puts me. He gave me today.”

And don’t try to swindle Susan, because she’ll call you on it. She says she’ll help people get a meal, shower, shelter, dental appointment or even glasses but she doesn’t permit panhandling. “We do not ever give out cash. There are sad stories that are true. There are also a lot of scams. If you want me to pray for you, I’ll do that. If you want me to pay for you, I won’t.”

“Susan has earned the respect and gratitude of those for whom and with whom she serves: The mayor and city officials of Tarpon Springs, her church family, neighborhood residents, and peers,” says Carmen Wilson, program director for the Citizens Alliance for Progress in Tarpon Springs, who nominated Susan. “She has a team of volunteers that she has inspired and impacted such that, whenever she calls on them, they are ready to assist in so many ways.”

Susan also helps procure furniture and other amenities for clients who are moving out of shelters into their own place. She’s often seen behind the wheel of the moving van shuttling a sofa to someone who needs it.

“He gives me one day at a time. That’s what I do. I do it somedays better than others.”