What's in an hour?
The year before Peggy and I retired, our son was hospitalized for over three months for issues related to his disabilities. During those dark days, as we walked the hospital halls we occasionally heard piano music floating up from the atrium, and we would see a red-shirted volunteer at the keyboard.
We would stop and listen for a few minutes and find that the gentle music made things seem a little better. Obviously, nothing measurable changed in our situation, but I always felt that when we returned to Ross’s room, our capacity to cope had been refreshed.
That is one way to look at the impact of a volunteer’s service.
I carried with me those musical interludes. As my retirement day approached, I began to think maybe I could revive and revamp the guitar skills of my college days and do something good with them. I knew I would need to develop a completely different set of skills and repertoire to play in that environment, so I went to work. I signed with an online instructor, and five years later I auditioned at the hospital that had treated my son so well. I soon found myself playing next to the piano in the atrium, and later I was asked to play in the more intense setting of the surgery waiting room.
The thank-yous and warm smiles I get from visitors and staff suggest the music does make a difference. And I’ve gotten a few other musicians to join me by posting the opportunity on the University Retirees Volunteer Center website. That pianist I heard so many years ago would have no idea of this outcome/impact of his volunteer work.
Volunteer work is usually evaluated according to “replacement rate” figures based on hourly wages. But when I think of this experience, or many of the other volunteer activities URVC supports, I can’t help but think of the ripple effects of one hour of service: the unquantifiable impacts of people giving their time and talents for something or someone beyond themselves.
The data on hours contributed and people served are the notes on the page; the music is in the human spirit behind and beyond them.
—Jerry Rinehart, URVC Leadership Council chair
URVC would like to hear your stories of volunteer impacts that are “real” but hard to quantify. Please email Jerry Rinehart to learn more.
News
The 2026 Nominating Committee is looking for your suggestions for candidates for UMRA board and officer positions. If you know of someone who might be willing to step up to an UMRA leadership role—and that someone could be you!—please contact Julie Sweitzer, Nominating Committee chair.
How would you like to participate in one or more informal afternoon group conversations at the Campus Club with University leaders—deans, center directors, department heads, for example—regarding their current situations and thoughts about the future?
The University Retirees Volunteer Center greets 2026 with some exciting news: its office is moving to Morrill Hall, which houses the University’s administrative offices on the Twin Cities campus. The space is being provided by the office of Chris Gade, the vice president for communications, who oversees University Marketing Communications.
Meet UMRA member Pat Tollefson, founder of the UMRA Book Club (in 2011) and shining example of how volunteering and engaging in a variety of other activities can lead to a full life in retirement.
Here’s how to make payments for UMRA events easily in the UMRA member portal, and how to use your UMRA membership card for on-campus parking and other discounts, including University Bookstores.
Marilyn Erickson has an interesting set of three family history stories that she wrote “to check out the verbal family stories and connect them to documentation and photos.”
Drawing on his training as a historian, his patience and more than a little serendipity, Jim Tracy put together an account of his family history. “This account is for our family, if not now, perhaps later, I hope it may also be of interest for others looking into the history of their families.”
Then there are the unexpected things that happen…
… like a box of family history from a cousin that was completely unexpected. Perhaps it is like an unexpected DNA match.