Home of: Birdie Raze

Birdie Raze has well over 500 grandchildren, ranging from elementary schoolers to high schoolers. That large number isn’t all blood-related relatives though. Raze has been a foster grandparent at Linderman Elementary School in Polson for more than eight years, adding more and more friends to her stable of “grandchildren.”

“I learn something every day around the kids,” she said. “It’s fun. I’d go nuts if I had to just sit around. I’m a doer!”

The 75-year old, born “the same year as Elvis Presley,” worked a variety of jobs when she was younger, but has found her true calling working with children. Hampered by a laryngectomy operation she had after a cancer diagnosis 22 years ago, Raze finds that working with the young kids is like working with, well, children.

“The kids are better about it than the adults,” Raze said of her speaking difficulties. “They say at first, ‘She talks funny,’ but then that’s the end of it.”

During her more than eight years of service as a foster grandparent, Raze has volunteered almost 12,000 hours of her time, the most of all Western Montana Foster Grandparents, which is sponsored by the Western Montana Area VI Agency on Aging. Foster grandparents serve six area counties, including Flathead, Lincoln, Mineral, Ravalli and Sanders, yet not one person has more volunteer hours than Lake County’s Raze. Her work has made her a recognizable face around town.

“I’ll be in a store and someone will ask, ‘Are you Grandma Birdie?’ and I’ll say yes, and they’ll say that I had their grandchild,” she said.

Volunteering at Linderman Elementary School, Raze has worked with grades 2 through 4, and a variety of different teachers throughout the years.

“They said whoever gets that room gets me,” she said.

Dedicating nine months of each year to the school can be overwhelming, but Raze accepts it with a smile.

“Sometimes I’ll ask other teachers if they have work they want me to do,” she said. “It keeps me busy and gives the teachers a bit of a break. They’re expected to do an awful lot.”

One of her favorite parts of working at Linderman is their fourth grade “village.” The “village” has all the things a normal town would: a mayor, employees, stores, taxes and bills. Each student is given a job and earns money and pays bills. Then, at the end of the year, items are donated by local merchants for the children to bid on with the money they earned throughout the school year.

“There is a lot of paperwork,” Raze said of helping with the village. “It can be two pages a kid, so it’s lots of additional work for each teacher.”

Her hard work and dedication earned her a trophy proclaiming her the Polson Chamber of Commerce “Citizen of the Year” in 2008.

“I probably worked with all [the Chamber member’s] children,” Raze quipped.

Yet Raze doesn’t do it for the accolades. Rather, she does it for the children.

“The best is when there are the kids you know had a tough, tough time, yet you see their name in the paper on the honor roll and you go, ‘yes!’” Raze said.

Her giving spirit has endured since she was a little girl. Born and raised a block and a half from where she now lives in Polson, Raze has the small-town spirit of a Polsonite, despite living in various places around the Pacific Northwest.

“I was always raised that what you got, you gave,” Raze said. “I was raised to be a good neighbor. Remaining distant only breeds distrust.”

So if you see Birdie Raze around town, be sure to shout out “Grandma!” or flash her a smile and wave.