It is a Wednesday morning, a week and a half before Christmas. Volunteer Phyllis Johnson, a parishioner of St. Joseph Church in Alexandria, is working on a computer at Arlington diocesan Catholic Charities headquarters in Arlington, trying to find people to take over a less-than-desirable volunteer shift at Christ House in Alexandria.

She is looking for a team to prepare dinner for the shelter’s homeless patrons the Monday after Christmas. It’s not the ideal job and it’s definitely not the ideal day or time, but Johnson is determined.

“If nobody else can do it, my husband and I will have to be out there,” she jokes.

This challenge is all in a day’s work for Johnson, who has been working as Catholic Charities’ volunteer placement coordinator for the last year.

In her post, she usually works three days a week for at least four hours. A self-proclaimed workaholic, she often stays an extra four or five hours. Her work is sometimes frustrating and always unpaid, but Johnson says she loves it.

“It’s not that I don’t like money — I like money — but for me, I’m not getting paid, but this is fulfilling,” Johnson said. “I think this is really what I’m supposed to be doing. I really enjoy it.”

Johnson’s job is to connect the people with volunteer positions at Christ House in Alexandria, Hogar Hispano in Falls Church and St. Martin de Porres Senior Center in Alexandria. In the last year, she estimates she’s worked with 400 volunteers, including many students trying to fulfill service requirements.

A resume of service

This position is just one of many volunteer jobs Johnson has held over the years.

Her husband, who retired in 2007, spent 30 years in the Navy, and her family has lived all over the world, never staying in one place for more than three years. Everywhere the family went, Johnson made a point to get involved and help out in whatever way she could.

As a result, her list of involvements is long and diverse. She’s worked with the Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity. She’s helped out at her children’s schools. She’s sung in choirs. She’s worked as a eucharistic minister, an office coordinator and a fundraising chair. After Hurricane Katrina, she worked with Catholic Charities in Mississippi putting up drywall and repairing damaged houses.

“I always volunteer every place I go,” Johnson said. “It’s just something I’ve always done. It’s just natural.”

When she moved back to Northern Virginia, she got involved with Catholic Charities after reading about the open position in a bulletin at St. Joseph.

“I called and e-mailed and told them, ‘it said you needed help and I’m here to help,’” Johnson said.

One of the reasons Johnson has spent so much of her life doing service is because she knows firsthand what it’s like to be in need.

“Being in the military, I know how it feels to move to a new place and nobody wants to help you. Nobody wants to be there for you and you’re on your own and you do what you have to do, you do the best you can,” Johnson said. “Maybe I’m a little bit stronger than others, but I figured I can do what I can do to help people in that situation. It’s a horrible way to feel.”

More than that, though, to Johnson, volunteering just makes sense.

“When you want the best for others and they want the best for you, then that’s the perfect world,” Johnson said. “Seriously, if we did that, there wouldn’t be any war. There wouldn’t be any conflict because we’d want the best for each other.”

Because it’s something she feels so strongly about, Johnson involved her two children, now college-aged, in service.

“My kids have been volunteering ever since they could walk,” she said. “I always tell them, ‘Volunteering is like breathing. You have to give back. There is no such thing as take, take, take, take.’”

Finding God’s plan

Johnson says that volunteering is just one aspect of a full life, one that also includes family and church life and, at the very top, God.

“Without God in your life, if you don’t have hope and you don’t have faith, it’s going to be a scary life, because what else is there?” she said.

This attitude is not something Johnson was born with, but rather something she found after meeting her husband. As a child, she rarely attended church with her family. When she met her husband, a Catholic, their conversations about God led her to reconsider her own spirituality. Twenty-six years ago, they were married in a Catholic church in Great Lakes, Ill. In 1995, Johnson was baptized while the family was living in Japan.

Now she realizes that her whole life has been laid out according to God’s plan. She believes every challenge she has faced — such as growing up in a military family that was constantly relocationg — has been in preparation for something else.

“There’s a plan and we don’t understand the plan,” she said. “I think the hard things that happened to me as a child helped me to be stronger as a wife in the military, because military life is extremely hard. It helped me conquer the isolation and whatever goes with that.”

Seeing from a new perspective

From her time spent volunteering, Johnson has developed a deeper appreciation for the people who help — no matter how small the task.

“You realize there really is no such thing as a little job,” she said.

She also has learned to be more patient with herself and with other people.

“You realize there are so many ways to volunteer,” she said. “You see the selfish side of people and you see the kind people. Some volunteers say, ‘I’ll do anything,’ and then you have others who say, ‘I’ll only do this or this.’ If you’re demanding, then that is not volunteering. And you see that in yourself.”

For those people who do want to help, Johnson says the best way to get started is to just look around for something that fits your passion.

“There are so many different organizations you can help with,” she said. “Find your niche, find out where you can donate your talents and if you can’t find one, start your own.”

She encourages people to get out and pay more attention to their communities as a way to see what’s going on and who needs a little extra help.

“Get to know your neighborhood because there are a lot of things going on you wouldn’t know about and you’d be surprised,” she said. “If you don’t talk to people and find out what’s going on, you’ll never know.

“I’m not saying you have to change the whole world, because if you take it all upon your shoulders, you’ll be overwhelmed. But just do a little bit and then, when you finish that, do something else. It’s all about the little steps, like with anything.”