What is it they say about relationships? Opposites attract?
It seems to make for good chemistry in the volunteer work Tony Schall does.
“I grew up in the suburbs,” he says in a kitchen classroom set up in an old barn. “I don’t know anything about farms.”
And yet he volunteers as a board director for Steckle Heritage Farm, a charitable non-profit in Kitchener that keeps families in touch with Ontario’s agricultural traditions. Surrounded by homes and industry in the Bleams Road area, Steckle farm runs children’s programs, hosts summer camps and rents out its barn for weddings and birthday parties.
Schall joined the Steckle board about two years ago, through a search that began with the MatchBoard program Capacity Canada operates at Manulife’s Waterloo and Toronto headquarters. MatchBoard connects Manulife employees with volunteer opportunities on the boards of community groups.
“I had never done volunteer work,” Schall says in an interview. “My job had kept me extremely busy for many, many years. It’s still busy, but things were a little bit better. My daughter was older so I decided that I was going to do something.”
Steckle farm fit his interests in something small, something steeped in history, and something that gives people pause for thought on the use of land and resources. The Steckle board, Schall says, is a collaborative operation that runs smoothly under the care of executive director Krista Cressman-Buck and board chair Laverne Brubacher.
Schall can count himself among 13 million Canadians 15 years of age and older who volunteer occasionally or regularly, according to the 2013 General Social Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating. Statistics Canada prepares the report.
That works out to about 44 per cent of the older-teen/adult population, something to keep in mind as the country celebrates National Volunteer Week through April 18.
Volunteerism in Waterloo Region runs close to the national rate. In 2012, Vital Signs, the annual report the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation puts together as a quality-of-life checkup, estimated 42 per cent of the region’s population volunteers to some degree.
Based on the region’s population in the 2011 census (507,000, give or take), that’s about 213,000. The regional government’s own population forecast to the end of 2013 was 563,000 because it more thoroughly accounts for post-secondary students. The number of volunteers would be around 236,500.
There are a couple of other interesting local statistics.
The Volunteer Action Centre in Kitchener works with about 150 organizations to connect people in the north half of the region with volunteer opportunities. The United Way of Cambridge and North Dumfries operates a volunteer centre covering the south. It reports that it has linked more than 5,000 people to volunteer roles in the past year.
Those volunteers, the United Way estimates, contributed 830,000 hours — or about the equivalent of 399 full-time jobs.
Three years ago, a pair of economists at TD Bank grappled with the slippery task of putting an economic value to the time contributed by volunteers in Canada. It is, in their words, “in the ballpark of an astounding $50 billion each year.”
There is some cause for worry in the 2013 Giving, Volunteering and Participating survey. The volunteerism rate slipped three percentage points between 2010 and 2013. Time constraints remain the biggest reason why more people don’t volunteer, which is why employer-supported volunteering is so important.
Schall and his colleagues at Manulife contributed almost 86,000 hours of time worldwide as volunteers, according to Manulife’s 2013 public accountability statement.
And so what if he can’t farm. At work, as a project manager in information technology, Schall helps clients work through the intricacies of having their systems mesh with the ones Manulife uses.
In other words, he has an eye for fine-grained stuff, which is why Steckle farm calls on him from to time to comb through contract renewals, and policies and procedures.
“I’m certainly not a lawyer, but I have had to peel through some contracts in my area of responsibility at Manulife,” Schall says. “I’m used to looking at these things in detail.”
Canadian volunteers typically report volunteering makes them better communicators and organizers — portable talents they can use in the shop or office.
Schall says his work with Steckle farm has more to do with the soul than the skill set he can develop and bring back to his work at Manulife.
“I’m far enough in my career that this is not the reason,” he says. “I really wanted to do it to be active in the community and participate more in the community.”
