What’s the first image you think of when I say volunteer…yes it was probably the same picture I used to have,  a very kind, retired person, filling their days helping their local church, a friend in need or the area hospital.  I can admit when I was in my teens, the word volunteer never really conjured up anything exciting.  Don’t get me wrong I knew it was a good thing to do but not really something I WANTED to do.  I started volunteering at a young age, my parents taught me very well that it was expected and a way to be kind to my fellow human being.  I taught catechism, was a lector at church and visited the occasional relative in the nursing home.  Boy oh boy I wish I knew then what I know now!  

As I matured, some days more mature than others, I started to get a better idea of what volunteering really meant.  Living in Ottawa for many years gave me the opportunity to see some incredible festivals, events and fundraisers.  All of these fantastic things organized by volunteers.  I started to get a little more involved, helped out a few hours here and there at an occasional charity fundraiser, but living in a city the size of Ottawa, you don’t really feel the impact of being a volunteer.  That all changed for me over the Christmas holidays in 2005.  I was having a difficult year, although my career was taking off, I was struggling to find something meaningful in my personal life.  I came home to the Miramichi to visit my ever supportive family.  

At that time, each year the City of Miramichi chooses an outstanding volunteer or two to honour.  The criteria are quite extensive not the least of which is the volunteer must have been volunteering for fifteen years or more and had a significant impact on the community.  That particular year, my Aunt Judy was to be honoured at the City of Miramichi’s New Year Levee.   I was proud of her, of course, but had no real sense of what that award meant.  My mum and the rest of my family bundled up; set out in the cold and snow and off to the Court House we went to see the ceremony. 

That particular snowy day changed my life.  I listened as Judy spoke about how honoured she was to receive this award. What struck me though were the feelings she described about what volunteering meant to her.  What it had given her in her life, not what she had given but what volunteering had given her.  Judy had been volunteering for more than twenty years in this community and she planned on doing it for another twenty at least.  What I saw and heard that day was the real impact of volunteering on a community, organization or a person in need.  I looked at mum and said “I want to feel that way” Mum looked at me in that way that mums do and said “well then do something about it!”  I moved home to Miramichi six months later to do just that.  

The rest as they say is history.  People often say to me, do you ever say no?  I do, but I try not to, not because I can’t say no, but because I want to be involved.  I have had some incredible once in a lifetime experiences because I volunteer.  Of course there are days I would rather not attend another meeting or plan to plan to plan but I forget all about that once I get going.  The people I have met, the events I have been a part of and happiness that I see in others every day is what keeps me involved.  Volunteering has given me friends, social connections, business networking opportunities, lifelong learning and a feeling of being a part of an incredible community that I couldn’t have gotten any other way.  

There is no other community like the Miramichi.  There are thousands of volunteers in our area that keep our City going. These thousands of volunteers that no one knows about because they go about doing great things for the sake of doing them and not for the recognition that may come.  Theses volunteers work, plan, organize, worry and donate their time for people they won’t ever see or know.  It is my hope to shine a different spotlight on volunteering, give some much deserved recognition to those volunteers out there and to change that image in your head.  I have gotten to work with volunteers of all ages, in organizations that do so much for our community.   Volunteering is something I WANT to do because I love it and because I can.  I try to live every day the way my grandmother Marjorie taught me, “To whom much is given, much is expected!”