Green Mountain Outlook

Volunteering in our local community has its up and downsides.

But for those of you who spend long hours working as unpaid service volunteers—firefighters, EMTs, Civil Air Patrol search-and-rescue crews, shelter workers, Scouting and 4H leaders, school aides, after-school tutors, youth coaches, mission cooks, animal and wildlife stewards, spiritual caregivers, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, church- and fraternal-group leaders, elderly caregivers, Meals on Wheels and DAV van drivers—you understand that such selfless time spent away from family and friends can never be recaptured. But in merely scratching the surface of the many kinds of volunteers around us, we can better appreciate the vast reservoir of self sacrifice that drives so many Vermonters to community service—and it’s all done without the expectation of any kind of compensation. The work is reward enough.

Even in our so-called Era of Greed, there are far too many good-natured Americans for us to ever loose sleep over a few, high-profile bad boys and girls.

For all the greedy, financial whiz kids we read about in the newspaper, such as the likes of Bernard Madoff and Jon Corzine, the scales of what’s good about America tip favorably in the opposite direction with selfless volunteers such as Benson, Vt., resident Kathy Kidder, a volunteer Civil Air Patrol member who helped save the life of a young boy last year, and Middlebury, Vt., resident Jessica Appelson, who helped lead a volunteer Midd Hurricane Relief team of students to clean up after Tropical Storm Irene.

These two women are but the tip of an iceberg of volunteer adult men, women, teens and youth in our circulation area who go about their business quietly yet leave lasting footprints.

During the late 1950s, Albert Schweitzer, perhaps the 20th century’s greatest, selfless servant, said this about the call of volunteer service: “I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”

So when friends and neighbors sacrifice precious family and personal time in order to plow it back into the community, they deserve our sincere thanks and praise.

Community service, as Schweitzer and others have lived it, is not an easy calling. Regardless of whether you are a current volunteer or have done volunteerism in the past, thank you for your service. We salute you.