News Release-
The Waterloo Library and Historical Society has announced Christopher and Jane Shaffer as the recipients of the 2025 Henry C. Welles Award. The annual event will serve to kick off the Celebrate Commemorate Memorial Day weekend starting at 6:30 PM on May 23, 2025 in the Library and Historical Society’s Fatzinger Hall.
To say Chris and Jane Shaffer devote much of their time as volunteers within the Waterloo community is an understatement. The couple have been active lifetime volunteers, giving their time and attention through their deep caring of the community and the people who reside there. The couple attributes their community service and volunteering to their parents, Don and Nancy Shaffer and Vern and Barbara Sessler, who instilled a strong sense of community service within their families, through their examples. When told of the award, Chris stated “We are both very humbled by this recognition.“
There are not many areas of the community that these volunteers have not touched through their service. Since graduating from Waterloo High School in 1976, they have been members of numerous committees and organizations, serving on executive committees, and being awarded honors within many of them. As a couple, some of these committee/organizations are Waterloo Jaycees (Charter members and past presidents), Waterloo Rotary and Paul Harris Fellows, Trevor’s Gift, United Way of Seneca County, and co-organizers of the Healing Fields of Flags (2006). Perhaps most well-known is their involvement in the Celebrate Commemorate Committee. Their membership has spanned 26 years, 25 of which Jane has served as Co-Chair and Chris as chair of the Celebrate Commemorate Veterans’ Memorial Day Bike Rally and the “guy everyone asks to get anything done”. As a couple raised in the Birthplace of Memorial Day, Jane says “This weekend is important as it brings our community together to celebrate our freedoms and commemorate those that gave their lives for those freedoms.”
Outside of their common areas of service, Chris carried his passion of sports as a former multi-sport letterman at Waterloo High School and a SU football player into helping the youth of Waterloo. He has coached Little League Baseball, Varsity Track, Vince Lombardi football, and JV and Varsity Football. Jane has provided service on the Waterloo Business and Professional Association (past President), Seneca County Chamber of Commerce (past Chair), Waterloo’s Real Christmas (Honorary Angel recipient), Locate Finger Lakes Board of Directors, Sampson Veteran’s Memorial Cemetery Committee, Waterloo Zoning Board of Appeals, and Seneca Housing Masquerade Ball for Veterans Housing Committee. She is proud to have co-published, The History of Waterloo, with her father, LaVerne M. Sessler. Jane and her two brothers, LaVerne Sessler, Jr. and Craig Sessler, have been honored with the Sharing the Light Award from Catholic Charities and the Distinguished Citizen Award by the Seneca Waterways Boy Scout Council. She has been recognized as Woman of the Year by the Seneca County Women’s Coalition, Citizen of the Year by the Seneca County Chamber of Commerce, and a NYS Woman of Distinction.
“Community service in their communities and volunteer regularly.” Chris and Jane are the proud parents of Melissa (Brenden) Fritz of Omaha NE and Matthew (Kate) Shaffer of Bishopville MD and proud grandparents to Cameron and Beckett Fritz, and Seidon and Sawyer Shaffer.
To this year’s Henry C. Welles recipients, Christopher and Jane Shaffer, thank you for your dedication and service for the betterment of the Waterloo community.
