By Lindsey Coad
Pat Renaud uses a zigzag stitch to reinforce the pocket on a pair of worn-in corduroy pants. Using a bare light bulb as her guide and a cluttered card table for her workspace, she’s tucked away in a back corner of the Centre 507 drop-in on Bank Street, where she volunteers. Renaud works magic with her sewing machine each week, replacing zippers and hemming pants for people who come in for a warm cup of soup and a sympathetic ear.
About seven years ago, Renaud stuck a little note in the cupboard of donated clothes at the drop-in. “It said, ‘If it doesn’t fit, see Pat on Thursdays,’ and one thing led to another,” recalls the 66-year-old.
“This is just some little thing that I can do.”
The retiree is part of a group of volunteers at the centre who clock more than 200 hours every month. They help staff on the front lines of a city-funded program that serves men and women in need of support, some of whom live in shelters or rooming houses.
Free haircuts and organized cribbage tournaments happen on donated time.
But folks like Renaud are part of a larger force.
Last year, a total of 17, 847 volunteers gave their time to 150 non-profit health and social service agencies that are partially funded by the city. That amounts to $7.9 million dollars based on a hypothetical wage of $10 per hour, according to the city’s calculations.
“It shows that it’s huge and it’s ‘free’ to the public and this is something that we want to show to council and the residents of Ottawa,” says Yolande Cremer, the city’s manager of community funding.
Last winter’s 2004 budget review was the first time the city required its social service agency recipients to document volunteer hours as part of their submissions.
“We know that if they didn’t have that volunteer contribution that either the level of service would be diminished or we would have to provide additional funding,” says Cremer.
Dianne Urquhart, executive program director at the Social Planning Council of Ottawa, says recognizing this value of volunteers is a “good starting point”—but it’s just the beginning.
This fall, the council released a report of Ottawa’s non-profit and voluntary sector—from community health clinics to charitable groups—which operate on government funds, grants and fundraising dollars. Unpredictable, project-specific money has replaced long-term support.
Paid staff are forced to do more with less, which can lead to an increased reliance on volunteers in a bid to sustain services for a growing population, the report says.
“These are issues the community has to grapple with: What is the role of the municipal government? What is the role of the voluntary sector and within that, what is the role of the volunteers as a distinct part of the voluntary sector? Those are bigger questions than ‘should the taxes go up by three per cent or not?’” says Urquhart. Volunteers remain a pillar of affordable housing too.
Daybreak, a non-profit organization which runs three homes in Centretown, was launched in 1982 by a group of inner-city churches.
It relies on a patchwork of funding sources which fall short of the ever-increasing costs of insurance and utilities, so the non-profit has stepped up its volunteer recruitment.
“There is only so much money in the pot and volunteers—they definitely make up that difference,” says executive director Monica Siegenthaler.
She describes the grassroots organization as a “family” of volunteers who keep the books, troubleshoot computer problems, maintain the properties and bake birthday cakes for residents.
What would happen without them? Siegenthaler pauses. “Daybreak would pretty much just become a landlord with some minimal support services.”
Local research is needed to understand why people volunteer and what support will be needed in the long-term, Urquhart says. She notes the city’s growth plan for a “caring and inclusive city” by 2020 is a sign that the role of non-profits and their volunteers is starting to be recognized—but multi-year funding is needed.
Asking volunteers to pick up extra work is not sustainable in the long term, says Rose Anne Devlin, a University of Ottawa economics professor who has studied the relationship between volunteer hours and government spending.
She says a bit of substituting might happen today but it’s hard to pinpoint.
“One has to be very, very careful because it’s not possible to rely on volunteers and the voluntary sector to pick up large gaps in social services,” she says.
Cremer hears that concern: “I think volunteers are important, but you’re right, we have to watch that balance.”
Lack of funds to coordinate volunteers was identified as a budget pressure last year by some, but the city hasn’t had any available dollars to invest, says Cremer. “It is a pressure and we recognize it,” she adds. It’s uncertain what will happen this year.
But Devlin notes the impact of volunteering can extend beyond economic terms. “It’s hard to get a value for the development of social capital and trust and integration and awareness in a community,” she says.
The folks at Centre 507 are living proof that the real value of volunteering can’t be measured in dollars.
Manager Tracy Davidson says watching the volunteer effort is simply “wonderful.”
When the drop-in faced the possibility of a five per cent cut in city funding last winter, the budget was tightened. Paid cleaning duties, once reserved for participants of the drop-in centre, became the responsibility of volunteers.
“A couple of guys said, ‘I’d like to continue doing the cleaning because I’d like to give back to the centre.’ That’s huge,” Davidson says proudly.
For Renaud, the experience has been “a growing thing.”
“It gives me a chance to get to know people,” she says. “This is a comfortable place to be. I feel the people that I know are my friends.”