YMCA volunteer says giving her hours makes her feel 'like a million bucks'

Just do it.

Mostly everyone that reads this would think of the infamous Nike trademark, but not 67-year-old Louise Baca. For her just do it is a way of living.

Living with pain and aches all over her body after her broken hip injury in 1997, Baca decided that she no longer will tolerate living like this, so she became more active and fit.

This led her to joining the YMCA Walker Family group and try aquatics which later in 2010 esclated to her being inspired by one of the instructors, Kim Sweet, to volunteer and try teaching aquatics.

Coming from a family that has always volunteered, it was almost second nature for her to help people and do ‘unpaid’ work. Her mother Anne Hitchman was also known for volunteering and contributing to the community, one year she even won an award from the city of Kitchener.

While most people view volunteering as a selfless act, Baca sees it differently. She says volunteering is more of a selfish act because volunteers get at least as much out of it as the people they’re working for. she says she volunteers because it’s fun and it makes her feel good.

“People appreciated volunteers so much,” she says, “They make you feel like a million bucks all the time.”

During her time as an aquatic instructor at the YMCA, Baca started doing yoga and she loved it so much she started voluntarily teaching it in 2011 as well.

She sees yoga as a way to improve one’s mood and even though it’s a high intensity exercise it’s slow paced, which is why people get to enjoy every second of it especially when it is done outdoors.

“If you’re doing something that is at a slower kind of pace you can take in the environment while you’re doing it, so the nicer the environment is the more enjoyable it is.”

The slow-paced exercise makes Baca appreciate what she is doing because it helps remind her of the reason she loves volunteering as a yoga instructor. She gets to see the change in people, she says her favorite moment is when she sees peoples’ faces light up. “It’s those moments when you get somebody who really doesn’t believe they can do this and then realize that they can.” Baca says, “it’s like this light bulb moment and you know you’ve really, you’ve got somebody.”

But that’s not all what Baca does, with the help of the YMCA she got to volunteer at the Mental Health Unit at the St. Catharines Hospital. She gives yoga lessons to in-patients at the hospital as well as being part of after school activities for kids.

Baca truly enjoys volunteering; she says it’s fun for her and she is a ‘fun’ and ‘wacky’ person who doesn’t take themselves ‘too seriously.’ And if volunteering didn’t agree with her and she wasn’t having fun doing it she says she simply wouldn’t do it.

“One of the great things about volunteering is there is no requirement to put in a lot of time,” she starts, “Technically I’m only booked here an hour a week, but it very often turns out more than that and I’m here anyway.”

Many programs that give back to the community wouldn’t exist without volunteers, Baca says it all operates because of them at the YMCA and even at the hospital. “The amount of man hours that are put in are just phenomenal,” she says, “We couldn’t do it if we were paying everybody that does classes.”

According to Zachary Pajtasz, Communication Specialist at YMCA of Niagara, the Walker Family YMCA has 89 volunteers and last year they worked combined hours of 3320 hours.

Baca says people think they need a lot of free time to be able to volunteer but if a person has a few hours a week to spare then “that’s fine.”

She says employers want volunteers to be there and help. There is a ‘unique’ level of cooperation between the volunteer and the employer. “They’ll bend over backwards to accommodate you, if you’re willing to help them and do a volunteer position,” she says.

No matter what situation a person is in or what interests a person has Baca says there is always a place that suits the volunteer. “I had a friend say well I cannot be on my feet and I said well that’s okay most places that you volunteer there is office work to be done.”

Pajtasz says volunteering especially for young people helps bring different opportunities, helps develop resumes and helps develop personal skills that can later translate into work opportunities.

Baca agrees “Just do it, if it’s ever crossed your mind,” she says, “Just do it because you’ll get out of it more than you can possibly imagine.”