Swore. Évelyne Charbonnier, decades of service to associations including the Telethon

“It’s a beautiful novel, it’s a beautiful story,” as Michel Fugain’s song says, and for Évelyne Charbonnier, in her eighties, it’s not a myth. She met her husband, Jean, in her neighborhood. He, the son of a hairdresser and aspiring hairdresser. She, helping her mother at the café-restaurant, grocery store and tobacconist on rue Voltaire where they grew up.

Nursing studies in Lyon interrupted for family reasons, Évelyne takes another path. She married at 21, when Jean returned from 28 months in the army. She will become the mother of three children (Christine, Annick and Patrick).

Toddlers, much more than a job

She practiced the fine profession of childcare assistant for twenty-five years and was president of the regional association. “I organized the national congress in Besançon in May 1997, with 557 auxiliaries the day after my mother’s death,” she remembers. For this commitment, she will receive the Order of Merit medal.

Concerned about the well-being of little ones, she was often in contact with doctors and pediatricians, including Doctor Koury in Saint-Claude. And when she was on leave, she did not hesitate to go to Besançon, with professionals or with her husband, because she does not drive, despite her license in her pocket.

15 years of Telethon and 500 meals served in 1998 after the television broadcast

For fifteen years, his great fight will be that, alongside Madeleine Marillet, the departmental president, of the Telethon with dozens of actions and meals organized with a good group of volunteers. She and her husband remember the day in December 1998 when television set up its cameras in the pipe-making city and when a journalist from France 2 came to eat at their house. “We served 500 salted goat meals at La Grenette, with 150 people dressed as Soufflaculs! A beautiful memory,” recalls the light-eyed octogenarian.

Évelyne Charbonnier also spent two years serving the Association of Paralyzed People of France (APF) and five at the association of multiple sclerosis patients, chaired by Françoise Lazzarotto.

Without forgetting the presidency of Amicale 58 for thirty years and the organization of wonderful trips (Greece, Spain, England, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Balearic Islands, etc.).

What will his next challenge be?