By Nick Stewart

REGAN CHRISTINE THOMPSON Sudbury

In an increasingly fast-paced world, volunteers are the unsung heroes helping to maintain the fabric of a caring, positive society, Regan Christine Thompson says.

The Sudbury native and winner of this year’s Northern Ontario Business Union Gas Essay Scholarship says the dog-eat-dog mentality is increasingly encroaching upon modern living, threatening to splinter the closeness that lies at the heart of a productive community.

Even advances in technology have led to more communication, but less connection, she says. While it’s far from the only solution, a key part of healing this growing rift is the willingness to donate one’s time to a worthy cause. This personal generosity can help encourage others to do the same, creating a small, but significant domino effect.
“Volunteerism is important because it’s what defines a society,” says Thompson.

“If you lived in a community where people weren’t willing to help others without the motivation of personal gain, if people were completely unaltruistic, we would all be very poor in character. All aspects of society wouldn’t run as smoothly as they do.”

Thompson speaks from experience, having dedicated countless volunteer hours to both her school and the community throughout the last several years.

Whether escorting and chatting with patients as a volunteer at the Hopital Regional de Sudbury Regional Hospital (HRSRH) or assisting with audio-visual set-up at Lockerby Composite School, she’s committed a great deal of time to helping others.

Although this dedication is something she enjoys, the benefits of volunteering are all too often lost on many high school students and young adults who would prefer to take a more apathetic view of the world around them. The requirement that students complete a mandatory 40 hours of volunteer time throughout their high school career is an important one, Thompson says, as it can have a profound effect.

By engaging in volunteer work they might not have otherwise chosen to do on their own, students may be able to change their perception about their role in the world, potentially impacting upon the rest of their lives.

Thompson’s experiences as a volunteer have impacted on her own life. After spending time in the pediatric wing during her service at the HRSRH, she became motivated to focus her life-long passion for the medical field towards becoming a pediatrician.

Now a first-year Integrated Sciences student at Ottawa’s Carleton University, she has taken the first step on realizing that goal, living proof that volunteering can in fact change one’s life.

“The experience of volunteering can really influence people and show them that the world is not just about being out there for themselves, and how they should really be out there for other people as well. It really can make you feel like you’re making a difference.”

Despite maintaining her status as an A student amidst her devotion to volunteering and avid participation in hockey, Thompson says not everyone is capable of finding the time to give.

To make matters worse, people are facing greater amounts of distractions in their lives. This is leading a growing downturn in the overall willingness of younger generations to help others, she says.

While strong leadership can help guide and encourage would-be volunteers, it’s a passion for the type of volunteer work that will ultimately keep them there.

“It’s another product of everything that goes on around us,” she says. “Young people have so many choices, they can’t find one thing that they really love.” They need to cultivate their interests and try different things.”

Though she’s also won various other accolades from her school, including several scholarships, she shies away from the attention and hesitates to laud her own accomplishments when asked about them.

Instead, she prefers to defer credit to others, embodying the very spirit of her true volunteerism. As an example, she points to Lockerby’s 2006 Caring for Kids campaign. As co-chair, she helped to organize and oversee the one-day event which raised $28,000, the most in its 10-year history. Her work earned both her and her fellow co-chair an award from the Northern Cancer Research Foundation, but she says the real recognition should go to the countless students who gave their time to pound the pavement that night, knocking on doors to help raise funds.

Regardless, the willingness to work for the betterment of the community is the truest possible reward because within every volunteer lies the heart of a leader, she says.