Volunteering touches lives and gives hope
Jeff Ng had a good job as a business unit manager for a Fortune 200 company. But in 2015, he decided it was time to take a month off from his brutal travel schedule and explore different job options. “It’s never good when you’re on a first-name basis with the people at the airport,” he says. “I had a family at home. I wanted something simpler.”
While he was seeking out other opportunities, Ng signed up to do some volunteering. He never went back to paid work.
Now the founder and (volunteer) executive director of Gore Park Community Outreach (GPCO) in Hamilton, Ng finds the kind of satisfaction in service work that has nothing to do with compensation plans and bonuses. Every Saturday, he and a group of volunteers serve hundreds of people hot food and coffee and send them home with some pantry staples.
What keeps those volunteers — including Ng himself — coming back, he says, is the chance to drive positive change and create the kind of community they want to live in. “I’m only one person,” Ng says. “But I want to be a person who’s going to make a difference in people’s lives. It’s amazing what you can do with even a little bit of your time.”
According to Volunteer Canada’s 2024 report, most volunteers are onside with Ng’s sentiment. Fully 93 per cent of the Canadians who volunteered their time in 2018 (the latest year for which stats are available) said they were motivated by the prospect of contributing to their community.
Like Ng, they believe that their contribution — no matter how small — can enable change. “Think about a piece of Lego,” Ng says. “By itself, it’s nothing. But if you put many pieces together, you can make something wonderful.”
GPCO is a case in point. Ng started it during COVID-19 in response to the overwhelming need he could see in the Gore Park area. At the first session, six volunteers fed just 30 people soup and sandwiches.
Now, although it has no walls (it is held in the park), no government funding, and no paid staff, GPCO has relationships with numerous businesses that donate food. Ng relies on 140 volunteers to bring a range of skills — from cooking, to serving, to cleaning up and even offering free haircuts to 800 people every Saturday.
Melanie Cummings, a communications officer for Hamilton Public Library, is one of GPCO’s volunteers. She also delivers food to shut-ins through Neighbour to Neighbour Centre, and this year she’s chairing gritLIT, Hamilton’s annual literary festival.
No matter where your skills and interests lie, Cummings points out, you can probably find a volunteer opportunity that aids your community in some way. For example, Cummings loves the people part of running gritLIT, but says, “I don’t love the finance part.” So she recruited her brother to be treasurer. “He loves numbers,” she says.
One thing is for sure, points out Volunteer Canada: Without the contributions of numerous volunteers like Ng and Cummings, this country’s charities simply couldn’t continue to function as they do. In 2018 (the latest year for which figures are available), volunteers in Canada gave 2.5 billion hours, or the equivalent of roughly 2.5 million full-time jobs worth $55 billion.
At a time when many Canadian charities are struggling, that contribution is more important than ever. Not only has demand for charitable services increased since the pandemic, notes Volunteer Canada, but more than half of Canadian charities surveyed report getting fewer volunteers. “The sharing of time, skills, empathy, and creativity is vital to the inclusivity, strength, and well-being of our communities,” it says.
Fortunately, the benefits of volunteering go both ways. Cummings has picked up plenty of transferable skills, such as the proper procedure for running a meeting, from her volunteer efforts. And she loves to hear people’s stories and feel she’s helping in some way. “You know, you’re making a difference in your community and in someone’s life,” she says. “That’s massive.”
As for Ng, he has picked up the habit of gratitude for the many blessings in his life, including a full fridge and a good family. Because he grew up poor, the stories he hears from the people GPCO serves touch him in a very personal way.
“Eighty per cent of them are seniors, people with disabilities or families with kids,” he says. “They’re hardworking people who are just having a tough time making both ends meet. We want them to know there is someone out there who cares.”