Columnist Susan Snyder: Volunteerism can’t truly be measured

Friday, Dec. 13, 2002 | 5:07 a.m.

In reading last week's United Way report naming Nevadans the most slack in volunteering nationwide, I thought of Roy Smith and Joyce Colling.

I met Smith last year as he drove from trash bin to trash bin along Interstate 15 collecting aluminum cans to raise money for Overton's senior center. He made a weekly pilgrimage between Overton and Mesquite, looking for cans on both sides of the highway.

I spotted Colling early one morning in February 2000, picking up trash along State Road 159 in the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. Colling, then 67, went out there at least once a week.

Smith and Colling are self-starters who spotted opportunities to serve and went to work. No one is logging their hours or handing them a plaque.

Most volunteers don't work for the recognition, and most don't get any. Even the agencies and people who benefit often don't know who these unsung angels are.

That makes me wonder how the United Way knows how many hours the Smiths and Collings of Nevada are -- or aren't -- volunteering. Fran Smith, executive director of the Volunteer Center of Southern Nevada, wonders too.

"I don't know where United Way got their numbers," Smith said. "There's no system in existence in Southern Nevada whereby agencies report to a central place how many volunteers they have and how many hours they volunteer a week."

I called the United Way's headquarters in Virginia -- the number listed as being the one to call about its national State of Caring Index rankings. But my calls weren't returned.

Smith, whose agency connects people who want to give their time with groups that need them, said there always is a need for more volunteers. But she's not certain the amount of work can be objectively ranked.

For example, the guy who lives up the street from you gets in his car one evening and drives away. He might be going to the store or a movie.

He also might be headed to the home of a local senior citizen to pick up a grocery list or read the newspaper aloud, or to the library to tutor a struggling teenager in math. You probably never will know.

"It is not an objective condition," Smith said of volunteer hours and effort.

She admits Southern Nevada's transient, newcomer-based population doesn't bode well for community involvement. Statistically speaking, people tend to live in a place five to seven years before they take the volunteer plunge.

Then again, we have no way of tracking volunteers' time in any comprehensive, meaningful measure. And just because people are new is no reason to sell them short, Smith said.

"A lot of people come here and bring their ethic of volunteering with them," she said. "It's something that's American in nature. There's a very strong ethic of volunteering in our history."

There still is -- even if we don't know who these volunteers are.

"Agencies do their own recruiting," Smith said. "But people who have a passion usually pursue something in that issue area. We probably get volunteers that way more than any other way."

Passion can't be measured -- not even by the United Way. But we know you're out there somewhere.

Keep up the good work.