ORONO – Maine’s volunteers, along with representatives from the Canadian Voluntary Sector Policy Unit, will be in the spotlight at a symposium scheduled for June 6 at the University of Maine campus.

The Maine Commission for Community Service is a group that supports Maine’s volunteer sector, fostering collaboration between state and federal agencies, colleges, universities and community volunteer programs.

Mary Alice Crofton, MCCS executive director, said bringing in Canadian experts on volunteerism will be beneficial for the commission’s goals.

“You’ll see lots of information on the business sector and on the nonprofit sector,” Crofton said Monday. “What you won’t see is information on the volunteer sector,” adding that it usually gets subsumed under the nonprofit sector.

The Canadian government’s Voluntary Sector Initiative has been a five-year process, looking into the affect volunteerism has had on the Canadian government. So far, there has not been a similar initiative on either a federal or state level in the United States, so this symposium is the first of its kind in the nation.

Many volunteer organizations, such as AmeriCorps, the United Way and Big Brothers Big Sisters, fall under the MCCS’s jurisdiction. Crofton hopes people who work with those programs, as well as those who help fund them, will come to the symposium.

“We started looking at the research the Canadians had done, along with research done in the U.K. and Ireland,” Crofton said. “Since Canada is in such close proximity to Maine, we thought it would be helpful to invite representatives to talk about how they approach the connection between the government and volunteerism.”

Marie Gauthier, Canadian Voluntary Sector Policy Unit director, will deliver a keynote address, and workshops on government involvement in various areas of volunteering, including the environment, literacy and education, housing, public safety and elder services.

Interested persons can register by visiting www.maineservicecommission.gov/symposium/index.php. The symposium will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Buchanan Alumni House at the University of Maine in Orono. Cost is $40.