Speech: The Value of Volunteering

Remarks Delivered At A Volunteer Recognition Event
By Crook County Judge Scott R. Cooper At the
Crook County High School Auditorium, May 13, 2005

A wise man named Albert Einstein once said, "Not everything that counts can be counted. And not everything that can be counted, counts."

Think about that for a minute: how much time do we all spend every day counting things:

--counting monetary contributions, without counting the good those contributions have done;
--counting the contacts we have made, without counting the difference that resulted from those same contacts;
--counting on others, without realizing how many people are counting on each of us.

Einstein understood that some things simply don’t lend themselves to classification and a reduction to quantitative terms. Einstein would certainly have understood that volunteering is one of those things.

Why do people volunteer? It isn’t about the money;. it isn’t about prestige, and it certainly isn’t because there aren’t a thousand other things that a volunteer could be doing.

From time to time, governments and academic types try to reduce the value of volunteer time to economic terms. How many of you have ever filled out a grant application where you had to calculate the number of hours that would be donated and multiply by some arbitrary number—usually minimum wage—to calculate an “in kind contribution.” If you’re like me, you hate these forms, because there’s something wrong and something demeaning about attempting to reduce the contributions of ever precious volunteers to monetary terms.

To attempt to put a dollar figure on the value of volunteerism cheapens and undermines the basic concept. Volunteering adds richness and diversity to our lives. It helps us understand our neighbors better. It promotes civility in our interaction with others. It gives us a sense that the world is not such a hopeless place as long as people like us care enough to protect our corner of it.

Whether you serve on a church board, or you coach a youth sports team, or you help battered women or you simply stop to help a stranded motorist, your every spontaneous act of kindness helps bind your community together. Volunteering is helping, not hiring; giving, not taking; contributing, not counting.Each one of you is here today because you are doing something to make a difference, or because you have somehow been supportive of someone who is making a difference or because you know someone who has made a difference in your life. You understand that the difference a volunteer makes can’t be reduced to monetary terms. The volunteer counts, but his value defies counting.

It’s not rocket science, and you don’t have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. Add up the hours if you must but don’t put too much faith in them. Our friend Einstein once said of his favorite charity, The Red Cross, it is “a light in the darkness and it is the duty of all of us to see that it does not go out." That’s our challenge. That’s why each one of you is here, for each of you represents a tiny flickering candle, who collectively, in a way that defies computation or reduction to a cold formula, do your part each and every day to keep the darkness at bay. And for that, you truly deserve the thanks of a grateful community, a pat on the back and a good round of applause for yourselves. Won’t you join me in thanking yourselves for all YOU do.