My father, who knew little about baseball, coached my Dad’s League team at the expense of a broken nose he earned while umpiring.

My mom managed my Cub Scout Den in our basement. She only lost one scout, and that was for an hour as she hopped in the car and found runaway Pat a few blocks away. He had gotten into a fight with his brother Mike.

I’m guessing you also have a family and personal history of volunteering.

If you’re an American, offering your time and skills for free seems in our DNA. Someone‘s counting, and about 40% of us provide the energy for 1000s of organizations. (source).

Of course, it’s not only us. My Romanian friend Alex, who lives in Reșița, Romania, rescues stray dogs and works to protect the pigeons that gather in the city center.

Yesterday, November 5th, was International Volunteer Day. Carole Olsen asks what kind of volunteering you do.

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Every Tuesday, from 8 am to 10 am, I join this crew at the Decorah Food Pantry.

Four days ago, fifteen of us unloaded, carried, opened, stocked, and recycled boxes for 6000 pounds of new and rescued food.

The new food arrives in this truck.

Mike and Steve deliver the rescued food from local grocery retailers in their pick-ups.

This is the black-and-white of volunteer work in our northeast Iowa community of 8000.

The orange arrow indicates the number of family members served, and the red arrow shows the weight of the food provided.

Matt, the Director, shared this story from a pantry client on Tuesday: “Until we found the Community Food Pantry, our last week and a half of each month, we were surviving on pasta and butter.”

Matt added that this couple are both employed.

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The Pantry runs on two paid workers, one full and one half-time, and 150 volunteers.

In other words, without volunteers, there would be no Pantry, just as I, growing up, would have had no organized baseball or scouting without my dad or mom.

What does it mean to be a volunteer?

It’s pretty simple.

Giving back.