Annual Smitty Award Presented to Cyndy Harbold

Cyndy Harbold was the recipient of this year's Smitty Award

August 16 brought the Annual Meeting and Reception of the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art, which highlighted the group’s activities from the past year and featured the presentation of the annual M. Smith Griffith Volunteer of the Year Award. First given in 1998, the “Smitty” award seeks to honor the many enthusiastic volunteers who have given their time and talents to the museum over the years. It is named for Smitty Griffith, a founder of the Friends and one of the museum’s most dedicated and generous patrons. Griffith was the first recipient, and the award has since been presented to more than 20 volunteers nominated by the staff of the museum.

This year’s Smitty Award was presented to Cyndy Harbold, a past president of the Friends and of the museum’s docents. She has given countless tours to a wide variety of audiences since joining the docents in 2009. As president of the Friends, she was instrumental in a complete review of the organization’s gift and income reporting, helping very much to ease the way into the new reporting structure of the UGA Foundation. Her understanding of accounting and her perseverance were essential to getting these seemingly mundane, but very important documents and procedures in place.

Harbold has also volunteered to help organize the Henry D. Green Symposium of the Decorative Arts, a truly monumental undertaking and one in which her assistance was most welcome. She exemplifies the best of what our volunteers can be.

While accepting the award, Harbold said, “When we talk about membership, I think we need to keep in mind that you not only ask someone to join but you take their hand and find something that you know is their spot in this place.” We couldn’t have said it better.

Past recipients of the award include Mae Castenell, Linda Chesnut and Berkeley Minor, as well as many other volunteers who have given selflessly to our organization. The Georgia Museum of Art could not succeed without the work of volunteers like Harbold, and we sincerely thank everyone who has ever donated time or resources to help us provide the best experience possible to the community.