Growing up, Molly Greene loved going to see “The Nutcracker” ballet with her mother and volunteering as a candy striper at a hospital.
Molly Greene, senior director of Arizona government relations for SRP, received one of the 2020 SRP Presidents’ Volunteer Spirit Awards for her volunteer work helping Ballet Arizona (photo courtesy of SRP).
Those two passions – ballet and community outreach – have combined to make the North Central resident an ideal volunteer for Ballet Arizona. For her volunteer efforts, Greene, who is the senior director of Arizona government relations for SRP, recently received the 2020 SRP Presidents’ Volunteer Spirit Award. She and four other SRP employees were honored for their tremendous dedication to their communities. SRP provided checks of $2,500 each to the company’s non-profit partners. The non-profit organizations could use the money however they chose to, for their operations.
Last year SRP workers and retirees volunteered more than 53,000 hours to 280 non-profit organizations in the state and donated about $97,500 through SRP’s Dollars for Doers program.
Greene helps make ballet accessible to the masses as a member of Ballet Arizona’s board of directors and chairwoman of its Development Committee. A mother of three, she said SRP heavily promotes volunteerism and she had volunteered for some other organizations before an opening became available on the Ballet Arizona board about five years ago. The Development Committee’s mission “is to support financially the fundraising efforts of the organization,” said Samantha Turner, Ballet Arizona executive director.
Every year Greene volunteers hundreds of hours to help raise money and cultivate community partnerships for Ballet Arizona. She has helped support programs that bring dance to the community including Ballet Arizona’s Ballet Under the Stars, which provides free performances to 15,000 Valley residents in area parks every year. Greene’s also made a big impact on DanceAZ, a Ballet Arizona program where students at underserved schools learn life-altering skills via dance.
“There are so many incredibly hardworking staff members at the organization,” Greene said. “It just seemed like a calling. I knew we had an incredible artistic director in Ib Andersen.”
Turner is thrilled to sing Greene’s praises.
“She has a lifelong commitment to volunteerism and is very dedicated to the organizations that she is a part of,” she said. “We are a better, more successful organization because she’s been part of our board.”
Greene is in her third year of her second term as a Ballet Arizona board member. She will help find a replacement to start when her term ends.
Ballet Arizona, like other arts organizations, can always use volunteers to help with projects. Anyone interested can contact Turner at sturner@balletaz.org.
