William J. McCarthy, Jr.
Executive Director

This month, the hope we carried through winter proves its worth with the full bloom of spring. We welcome sunshine, and we celebrate Easter. Since it’s National Volunteer Month, we also get to put a spotlight on the people who, asking nothing in return, help us carry out our mission every day.

Everyone has their own reason. Bernie Farace has been volunteering with Our Daily Bread Employment Center for more than 20 years. He started coming with his wife, Eleanor. He says he still comes as a way to honor her memory.

Patricia Morgan says the richness of her life means she is required to give back, and she learns something every time she goes to Sarah’s House to help.

Kristen Hasse says serving with us makes her hopeful for the future of Baltimore.

Committed to community

Woman volunteering at My Sister's Place Women's Center

Our nearly 7,900 volunteers multiply compassion throughout our communities

These reasons have a common thread: community. Each of these volunteers – and likely each of the other nearly 7,900 volunteers we welcome – wants to do something to make a community stronger.

That dedication deserves our thanks and our recognition. Our volunteers, in their own individual ways, share a boundless compassion that forms the foundation of our movement to improve lives. They live that compassion in the very places our neighbors in need have called home. Together, we answer a collective call to live in more complete solidarity with one another. We form an ecosystem – a unit in which each piece relies on the other in order to thrive.

That’s what community is about.

Thank you!

To all of our volunteers: thank you. We can never express how much of a difference you make, to us, to our communities, and to those we serve.

We invite you to join us in our movement by giving your time. We will celebrate our volunteers throughout April, to show our gratitude for the hour, the day, the weeks, or the years they’ve spent on our shared journey to turn compassion into action. Together, as a kind of unending spring, we can make sure that hope is just the start of something better for all of us.