Some people seem to have an inborn disposition to volunteer. No scientific data exist to substantiate that, but a conversation with Mary Ellen Halverson easily leads to that conclusion. It is not because she recites a long list of service accomplishments. In fact, she’s quite modest about her volunteering, including her years at Peace House. What one notices, however, is her gratitude for the opportunities she has had.
Mary Ellen found her way to Peace House because of a friend who said, “Come and see.” That visit was to the original facility that Mary Ellen found somewhat dreary. But later she became a regular volunteer on Wednesdays when the new house opened, a service she gave without fail until six months ago when she had to stop driving. The decision to give up the keys is difficult enough, but for Mary Ellen it meant the end of spending time with people she admired for their resilience often in the face of daunting odds.
As one listens closely to her reflections, Mary Ellen’s volunteer spirit flows from an openness to discovery. When she was in her senior year at the College of St. Catherine (now University), she saw a notice from a religious community in Yakima, Washington, looking for volunteers to fill in as a teacher for a year while one of the nuns was on sabbatical. Mary Ellen thought, why not? That experience, in part, led her to see if religious life might be her path in life. She spent four months with a contemplative Dominican community in Texas, but came to see it was not her calling. After Texas, Mary Ellen joined the Papal Volunteers and was assigned to Chile where she taught 5th and 6th grade English and religion for two years in a Jesuit school staffed by American Jesuits, Papal Volunteers, and Chilean laity. Returning to the States, Mary Ellen taught Spanish at Saint Margaret’s Academy for four years before joining the faculty at St. Kate’s. That turned out to be her calling and she retired from the University after 25 years of service.
For Mary Ellen, what stands out about the Peace House mission is its commitment as a place where the unhoused and others (including her) experience a sense of community. As a result, she says, her primary task as a volunteer has been to listen, to hear people’s stories. Or as one author recently wrote about the power of listening, “to bear witness” to what people encounter as they navigate life.
Mary Ellen is a good witness and expresses gratitude for having learned from community members – not just how difficult life can be, but the ways in which they manage to still find moments of hope. “We take a lot of things for granted [as privileged people] that community members simply can’t. And yet they are people with amazing and varied interests, talents, and gifts that make them each unique.”
Reflecting on her commitment as a volunteer at Peace House, Mary Ellen found it easy to identify lessons she learned. First and foremost, she noted that a person’s stereotypes of community members get knocked down quickly. “They are individuals,” she emphasizes, “and that means they have distinct life circumstances.”
Second, “I needed to develop a thick skin.” Mary Ellen learned that community members can sometimes be quick to speak their minds, be blunt, or argue. “I realized I couldn’t always take a remark personally but needed to redouble my listening to what people were really saying.”
Third, “as volunteers, we are not fixers. We accompany people while they are at Peace House, listening of course, but not trying to resolve their issues.” Fourth, related to not fixing was Mary Ellen’s realization that “we don’t have control over community members’ lives.” She acknowledges that can be uncomfortable at times but is offset by remembering that what volunteers do is sustain a sense of community.
Finally, Mary Ellen says that she learned what might be “better” for community members by listening to how they framed that. “What I thought would be good for someone to do was often based on my reality, not theirs.”
Embedded in these lessons is the heart of those “born to volunteer.” Service flows from appreciation of what it means to give and receive, to be present to another human being and to learn from them. It is a spirit of mutuality that characterizes volunteers at Peace House, a spirit that Mary Ellen models even now as recalls what she describes as very happy years of service indeed.
By Victor Klimoski