DRIVEN TO GIVE BACK
HAROLD EMPEY HAS SPENT A LIFETIME VOLUNTEERING
Harold Empey has never stopped giving back to his community.
Since doing his first volunteer work before he was 10 years old, Empey has spent decades giving his time to worthy causes.
His volunteer work has earned him many awards. He has overseen fundraising campaigns, represented his local Rotary club at international conferences and served on city councils.
More recently he has led a campaign to educate people on the importance of planning what will happen when they die. He has distributed more than 12,000 “Just in Case” binders and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity doing so.
Despite his wealth of accomplishments and the huge amount of work he has done, Empey has no plans to slow down.
“I always felt that I couldn’t take from the community. I had to give back,” he says.
------Empey was born in Lipton, Sask. As a child he lived in Lipton, Arborfield, Moosomin and Saskatoon.
He got his first taste of volunteerism before he was 10 years old.
“I rode in the back of an army truck from Arborfield to Aylsham and sold tickets to raise money,” he says.
What was he raising money for? “Heck, I have no idea. That was 80-some years ago,” he says with a laugh.
His father was involved in co-operatives and was a Sask Pool Elevator agent, which would inform Empey’s later career choice.
“We were brought up as a family that believed in the benefit of cooperatives,” he says. “Those were the days when people had to work together.”
He applied at Federated Co-op as a teenager but was told they wouldn’t hire him straight out of high school. They told Empey to get certified as an accountant. So he did. He was 17.
Empey went back to the Co-op but was told there were no accounting jobs. He says he insisted they give him a job as was promised.
He was hired as a messenger boy and went on to work in printing and in a warehouse before an injury sidelined him from physical labour.
“I’m one of the people who can actually say I broke my back working,” Empey says.
He eventually got his accounting job and worked his way up to an executive position with the Co-op. Over the course of his career he worked in Saskatoon, Regina, Craik, Melville and other small communities. In Melville he became a city councillor at just 24 years old.Later in life he spent 10 years as mayor of the Resort Village of Shields. He says serving in civic government taught him to carefully consider a situation before acting on criticism.
“Our politicians, if someone opens their mouth and complains about something, they immediately take action instead of saying, ‘Is this really an issue?’ ” Empey says.
His work showed him first hand the value a Co-op offers smaller centres.
I always felt that I couldn’t take from the community. I had to give back. — Harold Empey
“The only main store in a place like Craik is the Co-op store. If it hadn’t been for the Co-op principles and the member ownership, they wouldn’t have a store,” Empey says.
While building his career, Empey was also spending a lot of time volunteering. He cites the Bible and the golden rule when asked about what motivated him.
He joined Rotary in 1959 after being invited by a friend who was a member. He has maintained that membership to this day. During that time he has been club president, sat on many committees, coordinated an anti-polio campaign, spoken at world conferences, travelled to communities around the globe for charity work and much more.
His efforts earned him several awards and recognitions from the organization, including the Rotary Service Above Self Award, awarded by its international leaders to a select few members each year.
Outside of Rotary Empey has always been active in his church and his community. His contributions, and the awards and recognitions he has earned, are too plentiful to list in full. Recent efforts include leading two major fundraising campaigns for Oliver Lodge, a long-term care home in Saskatoon.
“He’s just a dynamo. He’s extremely active in the community and a very dynamic person,” Gary Gullickson, who has worked with with Empey through Rotary and Probus, a group for seniors in Saskatoon.
“He’s retired but you wouldn’t know it.”
---------In the last five years Empey’s primary focus has been a new project, one that helps people prepare for the uncomfortable but inevitable event of their passing.
In 2005 and 2006 Empey was experiencing health problems. He was advised he should get his affairs in order. He and his wife prepared a book that outlined everything: their wills, their wishes for a funeral and all the other details.
In 2012 Betty died of cancer. While it was obviously a terrible event, Empey says it was made easier by the discussions and planning he and Betty had done.
“It’s a huge difference. She saw the obituary. She read the memorial card. She picked out the hymns. She knew who the pallbearers would be,” Empey says.
A few months later he was struck by tragedy again when one of his sons died.
“I was going to his home in Rosthern to deliver a binder to him. Instead I went to a hospital bed,” he says.
Empey’s son and his daughter-inlaw had not done all the planning he and Betty had. Empey saw the stark contrast in how the aftermath of a death can go.
“There’s no question that my experience motivated me to do something,” he says.
Not long after that a friend asked Empey to see the book he and Betty had prepared.
“I said, ‘My book isn’t what you need. My book is the decisions we made. What you need is the questions,’ ” he says.
Empey went about preparing those questions. The result was the Just in Case binder. Since then Empey has distributed more than 12,000 of the books. He gives seminars all over Saskatchewan and sometimes across Canada. In one recent week he got calls from Tennessee and Georgia requesting binders.
The entire enterprise is non-profit. Empey says he has raised more than $200,000 for a variety of causes.
Empey says he has received massive amounts of positive feedback. He tells a story about his neighbour going to a funeral in Calgary. The new widow asked Empey’s neighbour is she knew him, and told her she didn’t know what she would have done without Empey’s book.
Demand for the binder is not slowing down. Empey has seminars booked as far away as Ontario. One session is already planned for 2019 in Prince Albert.
He recognizes he will not be able to lead these seminars forever. He is not sure yet who might take his place in the future.
There’s no question that my experience motivated me to do something. — Harold Empey’
“I tell it as my story. It’s hard for someone else to build the relationship with the audience when they’re not part of the program,” he says.
Trevor Forrest is the former executive director of the Saskatoon Community Foundation, which partnered with Empey to produce and distribute some of the binders.
“Harold’s ability to relate his personal journey, with his wife’s passing, is invaluable in terms of the credibility he brings to the program,” Forrest says.
Forrest praised the amount of work Empey is willing to put into Just in Case and all the community efforts he participates in.
“It speaks to the quality of man he is,” Forrest says.
“He kind of reminds me a bit of the Energizer bunny. He just keeps going and going.”
Last April Empey won his most recent prestigious award. He was announced by Lieutenant Governor Vaughn Schofield as one of the recipients of the 2015 Saskatchewan Volunteer Medal.
Empey says he has never worked for the recognition, but acknowledges it was a great honour.
“If a person avoids a swelled head, it motivates us to do more, because you know it’s appreciated,” he says.
“It’s very satisfying to do the work and it’s nice to be recognized, but that isn’t what keeps me going. It’s giving back.”