By Luke Voogt
Respite volunteer Sharon Nolen still remembers the day she met 10-year-old Robert Fisher in 2010.
“From the moment I laid eyes on him I fell in love with him,” she said.
“He just stood there at the door – he was very little and he just had a smile on his face as if he was expecting something good.”
Sharon has looked after Robert one night a month for the last eight years, to give some much-need time off to grandfather Keith.
Keith has raised Robert, who has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and autism, since birth in the absence of his parents.
Now 18, Robert has become like family to Sharon.
“His grandfather said to me about a year ago I was the most important female in his life,” she said.
“That was amazing.“
The Bell Park telecommunications manager applied to Gateway Support Services knowing only that she “wanted to give back”.
“I would have loved to be able to foster a child,” she said. “But because I worked full time I didn’t think I’d be able to give properly.”
She undertook training in epilepsy and the autism spectrum to prepare and for Gateway to make sure she “was the right kind of person“.
“At the end of that they matched me with Robert, and his family and I just got on like a house on fire.”
Gateways recently gave Sharon an award for her years of service and “going above and beyond”, like when she took Robert to Disney World and Graceland in the US last year.
But the young Elvis fan mostly “looked after himself” making the trip easy, she said.
“There have been a couple of times when he’s had a seizure but with my training I was fine.”
With his grandfather aging Robert moved in aunt and uncle Leonie and Robin Shirreffs about a year ago, but Sharon continued visiting.
She was recently at his troll-themed 18th birthday.
“He’s grown into a really lovely young man,” she said.
“He wants to work in an old people’s home. He said, ‘I want to look after grandfather like you do with pop’ (Sharon’s dad) and I was really touched.“
Sharon said some people thought the National Disability Insurance Scheme had decreased the need for volunteers at non-for-profit providers like Gateway.
But the need was still very high, she said.
“We can always do with more volunteers can’t we?
“Somebody might only be able to provide one hour but an hour might make a world of difference to a family.”
Keith thanked Sharon during an outing at the sprint cars in Warrnambool with Robert on Tuesday.
“She goes to a lot of trouble now because Leoni’s in Summerville,” the Lara pensioner said.“I’m 82 now. An old man like me, I need a bit of break.”
He remembered when “human services came to me and the wife” and picking up Robert, who spent months in hospital after birth,
“He only weighed 460 grams – I’ve never seen a baby (that small). But you wouldn’t know it now.”
Robert had his own short but sweet message for Sharon: “She’s special because I love her.”
