I think it’s the bacon.

There are rashes of it cooking in the morning, and the smell fills the little parking lot of the church where I spend my Saturday mornings. Yes, it’s definitely the bacon. I even grab the odd slice when no one’s looking. Don’t tell anyone.

I should explain. Post-COVID, our church has restarted its Saturday morning breakfasts. One week, they let me cook the eggs, but I got fired (it was a faulty poached egg maker, I swear) and I’m now out of the kitchen, serving our customers. To be clear, this is volunteering: no tips, a pat on the back occasionally. Lots of laughs with my breakfast buddies. Smiles from our customers. I don’t care if there are no T4’s at the end of the year; this is worth a million bucks to me.

How to we define volunteering? The dictionary says it’s the practice of offering one’s time or talents, unpaid, for charitable, educational, or other activities, especially in one’s community. There are formal activities — those performed on behalf of an organization or entity like a church — and informal, occasional tasks like cutting your neighbour’s lawn. We, the volunteers, aren’t alone — not only in my church, but across the country.

Who does it? Statistics Canada and Volunteer Canada surveys offer a snapshot: from 2018, before COVID, nearly 13 million Canadians over 15 engaged in formal volunteering. That’s four out of 10 Canadians contributing over 1.6 billion hours. Informal activities are even more impressive: 23 million Canadians engaged in volunteering, for something over three billion hours. Imagine if you had to pay for all this activity. Overall, women are more likely than men to participate in formal volunteering, but not by much (44 per cent vs 38 per cent). You might think that volunteering is more common among us oldsters, but that’s not so. It’s spread across the ages, from 15 onward. The younger generations are more likely to help others informally, say by teaching, coaching, or offering health or personal care. Seniors (I love this: survey people call them “matures”) are more often found in the formal volunteering camp. COVID hit volunteering pretty hard, no surprise: there was a serious dip in activity from 2020-23, but there was also pivoting to online activity, stressing the not-so-hands-on activity. I think we’re pretty much back to the pre-COVID days though. Our church breakfasts are just one example of that return.

Who do we do it for? Beyond our neighbours and friends, its hospitals, religious groups, and organizations representing sports, recreation, arts and culture. Good thing, too: I can’t for a minute imagine hospitals, in fact any of the other organizations, operating without their volunteers.

Here’s a big question, maybe the question: why do it? Surveys from 2018 onward disclose multiple motivations, from self-fulfilment, to finding a job, to altruistic reasons; strangely, nobody ever mentions bacon. At the recent coronation, the Archbishop of Canterbury used the words service and duty, looking pointedly at the royals, I thought. Of all the motivations I’ve witnessed though, this one example stands out. Years ago, a talented patient was knitting tiny blue hats and jackets as I walked into the examination room. “Gifts for a new grandson?” I asked brightly. “No, doctor,” she said, “They’re for stillborn babies.”

She stopped me cold; stillbirth stops us all cold, I think. I wondered why, but instead I asked, “How’d you start?” “Well,” she said shrugging off this wonderful, sad act as though it were nothing, “I thought, those poor babies, I feel sorry for them. I have to do something.”

It’s not nothing, is it? Her act captured the essential spirit of humanity, its soul, expressed so naturally — so humbly — by a wise and thoughtful woman. I’ll never forget the gift she gave me: a lasting image, the defining act of volunteering, the thing that wakes me up Saturday mornings. (OK, that and the bacon, I have to admit.)