Walking through the Saline Recreation Center, Julia “Rosie” Voss smiles at the receptionist, who waves her and a visitor in, no questions asked.

After five years with the rec center, Voss knows her way around. And the warm greetings she gets from everyone she passes demonstrate just how much she is valued here.

“She has done above and beyond any of the kids I’ve seen over the last couple years,” said Jody Roberts, secretary of Saline Parks and Recreation. “She’ll do just about anything

that needs to be done and willingly.”

The 18-year-old Saline High School student started volunteering at the center after she and her family moved to the area from Alpena. What started as helping out at a few events and becoming a volunteer junior summer camp counselor eventually turned into a part-time job as a full counselor, lifeguard and baby-sitter at the center’s day care. Though now employed at the center, Voss continues to spend much of her spare time volunteering there, working at events such as The Great Pumpkin Roll, Movies in the Park and the Halloween Hullabaloo.

It's for her willingess to help others that Voss was named a finalist for AnnArbor.com's Young Citizen of the Year Award.

“I like working with kids and helping them have fun,” she says.

Mother Mary Anne Voss says her daughter is always the first to offer to help someone, but the last to take credit.

“She just really loves people,” Voss said.

That love extands beyond the walls of the rec center.

As chairwoman of the Saline Youth Council - sort of a city council for teenagers - Rosie Voss has become active, not only in running events but also in organizing them. She said she enjoys watching families have fun at community events and knowing that she helped put them together.

Among those events was last year’s middle school lock-in, which she helped plan and run as well as supervising 100 young students during a night of sports, games, music and fun. She also was key in organizing the drive to create a teen center in Saline, an effort, she said, that took lots of research, fundraising and networking. The effort has since been taken over by a local organization that plans to provide space and resources for the center.

“We wanted a place for middle school and high school students to go to just hang out and have fun with friends,” she said. “We just wanted a safe place for them to go without having to go far away.”

Next year, Voss plans to attend Eastern Michigan University and hopes to eventually become a pharmacist. She said she hopes to continue helping people through medicine.

“It’s important when given the opportunity to help somebody or your community, you should take it.”

Erica Hobbs is a reporter for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at 734-623-2537 or via email at ericahobbs@annarbor.com.