By day, night and on weekends, locals and members work to better their communities.

CHRISTMASTIME 1996 was a troublesome time for Chris Ryan, who felt more than a little self-involved by the things going on in her life.

"I needed a diversion," says Ryan. "I needed to use that energy to help somebody else."
So Ryan, a manager of information technology services for New York state's Office for Technology and a member of the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF), responded to her union's call for volunteers to work "PEF Day" for the regional food bank at a shopping mall in Albany. PEF has been working with and raising money for the food bank for years.

Ryan volunteered a couple more times that season and "got hooked," she says. Ryan recalls thinking at the time, "this is what the holiday season is all about."

Now, no matter what time of year, when the food bank puts out calls for volunteers, Ryan and other PEF members are among the corps, says PEF Region 8 coordinator Tom Camanzo.

To understand the PEF region's emphasis on community service, one only has to look at its budget, which perennially has a line item for charitable donations.

PEF Region 8 also sponsors an annual toy drive. The toys are donated to Toys for Tots, a children's center in Albany and to families of deserving parolees in the area.

In general, volunteering and doing things for those in need "is important for your well-being," says Ryan. "It is a way to feel good about an accomplishment other than work-related accomplishments."

As a public employee, however, Ryan thinks it's even more important to give back to the community. "I think it's important for the public workforce, especially, to be seen in the community and to give back to the community that supports our employment," she says. "We are fortunate that we have good, steady jobs."

Member to member: Helping at 'home'
Ryan is among the many members who regularly volunteer their time to make contributions to their communities that go above and beyond what they do everyday as public employees.

The same kind of community spirit that the New York state employees exhibit can be found among members in North Dakota.

The North Dakota Public Employees Association's (NDPEA) chapter at Mayville State University (MSU), which is between Grand Forks and Fargo, is a reflection of the tightknit town where people know their neighbors. But the university community is even tighter.

Since 1982, MSU baseball coach Scott Berry and his wife, Laurie, a member of the MSU faculty, have hosted and prepared a "family day" meal for the team's players and their families—about 120 people altogether.

When Laurie Berry was diagnosed with cancer in February, the chapter stepped up to the plate offering to prepare and serve the food for the April event, which had become a tradition at MSU. "We were very appreciative," says Scott Berry, an NDPEA member. "Some members had helped out before and they knew what type of effort it took to put it all together and make it happen."

The chapter, like many AFT locals from Rhode Island to Alaska, also sponsors its own scholarship program. Chapter president Shirley Rux says the competition is open to the children of NDPEA members statewide who are attending MSU.

The chapter's scholarship fundraisers involve the entire university community. "Mayville State University is very proud of its local NDPEA chapter," says university president Gary D. Hagen. "Their scholarship fundraising efforts are admirable and indicative of the type of members we have. We are grateful that the university's goal of serving students is being enhanced through our NDPEA chapter's efforts."

Public service: The broader mindset
Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the U.S. Department of Labor was looking for state Disability Navigators to work its "Disability Program Navigator (DPN) Katrina Initiative" in Louisiana and Mississippi. DPN was launched by the DOL and the Social Security Administration in 2002 to help people with disabilities to more fully utilize the employment services and other benefits that are available to them.

The DOL asked Glenn Olsen, a high-risk population specialist and director of the Navigator Program for the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, if he'd be a team lead.
Olsen didn't have to take the assignment but he did. After all, he'd be helping one of the nation's most vulnerable populations at a time when "most disaster plans did not include people with disabilities." While most volunteer navigators, nearly 50 altogether from 13 states, were in a rotation, Olsen, as team lead, was on the ground for three months, working 72-to 86-hour weeks at straight salary.

"For the first month, we had no hotel rooms," Olsen recalls. But the lack of shelter was nothing compared to the losses endured by the people they were helping.

Olsen says navigators in Louisiana and Mississippi worked to identify and stabilize people with disabilities, attend to their emergency needs and help them find employment.

It was no easy task in the first weeks. People and public services were not only scattered, they were on the move from one temporary location to another. Olsen and his team would talk to police and fire departments and visit churches and other places where victims were gathering to find people they could help. The team located what services were available and established services that were needed.

Over the three months, Olsen says the navigators assisted about 4,000 people with disabilities. They helped people get back to work but they also helped them get food, medical attention and prescriptions, wheelchairs—you name it. They helped a shrimper fix his boat and provided cooking supplies to a woman on the Houma Nation so she could make money by selling food to workers at the nearby oil refineries.

"It was the right thing to do," says Olsen of volunteering for the job that took him away from his family and the creature comforts of home. "It's one of those things that in the moment you don't think, you just do."

There are "hundreds of reasons" why it's important for unions to be involved in charitable and philanthropic activities, says PEF's Comanzo. "We are part of the community."