When word reached Dolores Faucheux that the St. Charles Parish Council was issuing a proclamation honoring her 20 years of volunteering at the tourist center, she replied, “I really didn’t want that.”
It’s not that Faucheux isn’t appreciative of the recognition, but she has a good reason for her response.
“I don’t need to be recognized for doing something I like,” said the Hahnville resident. “When they told me, I said, ‘Do I have to go?’”
She turns 86 in August so she’s entitled to feel however she wants to about her 20th anniversary as a volunteer at the St. Charles Parish Information Center, which she hopes to continue doing until she can’t do it anymore.
“To me, when you make a commitment to something you should stick with it,” Faucheux said. “I started when it opened and I’m still here, and I guess I’ll be there until I can’t go anymore.”
She’s with the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP), helping man the center. She also holds the distinction of being the last remaining original volunteer who has been there since the center opened in 1996.
At that time, the center was what she calls “under the bridge” or in the 100-year-old historic Bethlehem Hall building at West Bank Bridge Park in Luling. By 2014, it was relocated to the grounds of Destrehan Plantation and Faucheux was right there with it, too.
“You meet a lot of interesting people from all over the U.S.,” she said. “I am surprised by how many people from foreign countries stop here, and everyone talks when they stop here so it makes it interesting.”
They come from places like France, Germany, Switzerland and plenty from Canada. Faucheux said she’s seen visitors from as many as 20 different countries so far this year. Since the move to the plantation, the number of visitors has grown from a handful of people to 900 last month.
Faucheux said the least amount of visitors who come there are typically from Louisiana.
“They want to see plantations – that’s all they ask for,” she said. “I’m a big fan of the plantations. I’ve visited 32 in my years.”
Still, Faucheux said it’s not possible to do justice by talking about them so she directs tourists to the historic sites.
“You have to go and see,” she said. “Some of them are very elegant; some are not.”
Among her most memorable experiences at the center was meeting a couple from Hawaii nearly five years ago who stayed and talked with her awhile. They gave her their business card and invited her to visit them if she ever went to Hawaii.
Faucheux hasn’t gone there yet, but she certainly remembered them fondly.
Meeting the people is what keeps her going, as well as loving her job.
But in her classically straight forward way, she added, “Just meeting the people was something different than just staying home doing nothing.”
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