Volunteer week is a one-week recognition period set aside each year to give appreciation to those deserving people who commit to the giving of themselves. The week of April 23 is this year’s time for small gatherings to award people with token pins and certificates for a job well done. Unfortunately, this week passes with little public attention and this is fine with volunteers pursuing an altruistic lifestyle.

Helping an elderly person cross the street, holding a door open for someone in a wheelchair, or simply giving directions to someone who asks are ways people can volunteer everyday without making a prolonged commitment. There are innumerable ways we can give of ourselves just by living the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This is a practice so simple, yet appears so difficult for so many.

Countless volunteers work in many different areas of our society, not limited to, including hospitals, youth organizations, homeless shelters, schools and facilities too numerous to list them all. This work is done everyday by people who have set aside the frantic pursuit of material wealth and whose only desired compensation is the satisfaction of helping another person and hopefully a smile for having done so. I know this to be true because I am a volunteer.

I became involved in volunteer work in 1997 after a quarter-century of purporting a well-established life while, in fact, submerged in the throes of alcoholism. I ended up homeless in a Bangor, Maine shelter and this is where my life started back on a positive path. On a whim, I approached Sister Mary John, volunteer service coordinator, at St. Joseph Hospital and after an honest interview, was put to work as a volunteer in the hospital’s Emergency Department. Without warning, my life was changing on a daily basis.

I became guided into a life of self-worth as opposed to the life of self-centeredness I had led for far too long and instilled in me was a nurturing compassion for fellow man I had never truly experienced. Each day brought a new face to me that needed comfort and understanding. Some asked for a warm blanket and others meekly asked to hold my hand. The smiles on these people’s faces, as I said earlier, were all the compensation I needed.

I attended the volunteer recognition dinner in April 1998 at St. Joseph Hospital, where the keynote speaker was Dr. Donald Krause, who he remarked that evening, “The reason we do not pay our volunteers is not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless.”

It may have been that evening when I realized the most precious gift we can give is of ourselves, our time. In today’s world, it is very easy to simply donate money and although this is wholly beneficial and needed, giving one’s time comes more from the heart. Volunteering carries a two-fold compensatory gift through which the giver and the receiver both benefit.

While in Bangor, I also became involved with Little League Baseball and this has become a passion I hope never leaves me. Working with today’s youth gives promise for tomorrow and my hat is off to everyone who participates in this organization. The gift of telling a child that no matter what happens on the ball field, that everything will be OK, is a feeling of spiritual well-being that I hope transcends into them, the same way it transcended into me.

Life’s journey reunited me with my family; I am living in Gorham and attending the University of Southern Maine. I continue to volunteer in local Little League Baseball and at the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf.

Volunteering my time turned my life around and I will continue to repay this gift through volunteering as long as I can. For those of you reading this, I beg of you, the next time you reach into your pocket for a dollar, think about giving of yourself too. I promise you, the rewards are bountiful and you will feel a sense of yourself you may not have found any other way.

Ronald Gervais Jr. lives in Gorham.