A woman sits at a sewing machine mending clothes for a homeless man. A junior boys soccer coach claps his goalie on the shoulder after making an impressive save.
There is no question that volunteers make a difference in people’s lives.
The pool of volunteers in Centretown is becoming increasingly diverse, to include immigrants, computer experts who volunteer from home, people with physical impairments and even corporations.
These volunteers provide services so the city doesn’t have to, thereby saving local taxpayers the expense. This section will tell some of their stories.
What isn’t so well known is how that experience changes the volunteer, often in profound and unpredictable ways, and regardless of motivation.
I was thinking about this the other night during a conversation with a friend in the back of a taxi.
Most people who volunteer only do it so they have something to talk about at a cocktail party, she said.
To some extent, she is right. All volunteering is somewhat self-interested. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.
For students hoping to get into professional schools, it is a de facto entrance requirement.
For new immigrants, volunteering can be a way to learn a new language and get to know a community.
Many people get involved in the non-profit sector because they have been personally touched by an affliction such as breast cancer or racism.
Volunteering can also be politically or religiously motivated.
Self-interest was definitely a factor in my decision four years ago to volunteer as a reading tutor for children in an inner-city school.
It wasn’t the main factor, but how it would look on my resumé did cross my mind.
It turned out that working with kids in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for three years taught me more about life than all my years at university.
There were days when I’d work at the suburban members-only club where children dressed all in white for their tennis lessons charged exorbitant fees to their parent’s account, before I’d bus downtown to read Robert Munsch with eight-year-old Donna, who had fleas in her hair.
I’ll never forget the day Donna told me she didn’t get her allowance because daddy didn’t sell enough drugs.
I’ll also never forget 12-year-old Roslyn.
Shuffled around First Nations reserves and foster homes all her life, the waif-thin girl mumbled and stared at the floor when she spoke, which wasn’t all that often.
Roslyn hated reading because she was always so far behind her class and often missed our weekly session — once because she was suspended.
But one sunny morning toward the end of the year, a grinning Roslyn ran up to me in the schoolyard to tell me she’d finished Jacob Two-Two and the Dinosaur on her own. It meant everything.
Volunteering taught me that all children, regardless of race or background, will defy all expectations if they think someone believes in them
Volunteering taught me that behind the grimy streets and ramshackle buildings of Canada’s poorest neighbourhood is a remarkably strong, supportive and vibrant community.
In other words, I completely forgot about my resumé.
But not everyone thinks about their c.v. or their next cocktail party when they decide to volunteer.
Jacques Lapointe, 50, hardly ever talks about his volunteer job preparing and serving food at the Ottawa Mission in Centretown. The Statistics Canada media relations officer and former journalist has been volunteering on- and-off for two years.
“My friends, my colleagues that I work with every day do not know. My family, other than my wife, do not know. So I don’t like to say that I’m doing it because it would lessen the actions I think I’m taking,” he says. “I don’t want any thanks for it.”
Volunteering at the Mission has been more rewarding than Lapointe expected.
“I thought it would be rougher,” he says.
“I’ve never had any trouble with the people that come here. Everybody’s trying their hardest to make something good out of a bad situation.
“There’s the occasional look up and thank you, which means everything to me.”
As I left the Mission after talking to Lapointe that grey and chilly Sunday morning, I passed a thin woman in her 40s with a weary face, standing hunched in a doorway and smoking a cigarette.
My thoughts returned to Donna and Roslyn, who are now two years older.
I don’t know where they are or if they remember me. I hope I was able to make a positive difference in their lives, but I’m sure it wasn’t as big a difference as they made in mine.
In that sense, I suppose the whole thing was selfish.