Ventura County Perspective : Stalking the Quiet Philanthropists : No one really keeps track, but by some estimates, county residents are particularly generous with the most personal, altruistic gift of all--time.

It was money, or rather the lack of it, that prompted George Bailey to attempt a Christmas Eve header off the Bedford Falls bridge. It was volunteering to save another’s life--namely guardian angel second class Clarence Oddbody--that brought him back.

The gist of “It’s a Wonderful Life” is summed up in the heavenly visitor’s lines: “Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives, and when he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”

In spite of the local economy achieving a phenomenal 4.1% growth rate of late, there’s little big-time philanthropy going on in Ventura County. Ed Robings, director of the Ventura County Museum of History and Art, is convinced that we harbor “an inferiority complex” when it comes to connecting deprivation with donated dollars.

Are we doing our fair share? The average household contribution of $897 seems bountiful when compared to an average household income of $71,451. But this statistic is minimized by the fact that only 40% of charitable contributions go to non-church-related causes. Because state Education Reserve Augmentation Fund (ERAF) transfers have been raiding local government coffers, the needs of libraries, recreation programs and hospitals have to compete with the usual suspects among nonprofits and community-based organizations.

Instead, however, of trying to shame the residents of Ventura County into writing larger checks, perhaps we might take a gander at a missing piece of the philanthropy equation. It is my contention that local folks believe that giving of their time is a whole lot more altruistic than responding to the latest mailer begging for bucks.

Nobody in Ventura County seems to be tracking the number of volunteer hours contributed by our residents. Is that because what you get for free is not valued? Perhaps. That misconception prompted the National Volunteer Assn. to put a $14-an-hour price tag on donated assistance.

Here in Ventura County, Anne Sobel, executive director of the Red Cross, confesses that her organization discovered that tabulating the time provided by unpaid workers robbed resources from her organization’s mission. Cash-strapped charities have to prioritize and trailing volunteer footprints doesn’t rank high on anybody’s list.

Although no formal study backs this up, it is believed that one out of every three Ventura County residents volunteers at least once a month. Look around you: Hospitals, schools, libraries, parks, police and fire departments all benefit from the people power provided gratis by the generous-hearted among us.

Our 27 museums are staffed by culturally savvy but unremunerated docents--more than 200 volunteer at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley alone. The city of Thousand Oaks benefited from 60,000 donated hours last year. Interface, which assists 183,000 families and children through its 26 programs, attracts a whopping 1,400 volunteers annually and the Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence boasts an unpaid work roster of 50. An HIV / AIDS prevention program is recruiting for 12 to 15 Ventura county teens to assist as peer educators.

There wouldn’t even be a Ventura County Fair without the 1,600 unselfish souls who fritter away their summer vacations on this event, some of whom have racked up half a century of service. Fund-raising events in general, which provide cash for organizations from the Arthritis Foundation to the Zonta Club, are run on volunteer vigor, a practice that makes sense because more cents end up doing good instead of being gobbled up by overhead.

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Harriet Weigel may be the ultimate Ventura County volunteer. Recently honored as Oxnard’s Distinguished Citizen of the Year, she divides her time (only snoozing a couple of hours each night) among Bread of Life Ministries, the Alzheimer’s Assn., Ventura College’s adult education program, the American Cancer Society, Livingston Memorial Nurses as well as being a director at ARC-Ventura County, which provides services for people with developmental disabilities.

Weigel personifies the credo of those who quietly go about the business of community service:

“You don’t have to have a degree, you don’t have to have a lot of money and you don’t have to be a certain color or shape or size,” contends the 65-year-old volunteer. “You just have to love the people around you.”

Discovering daughter Zuzu’s rose petals returns George Bailey to reality. Perhaps he also realized, as Ventura County’s volunteers know only so well, that a blossom’s sweet smell not only blesses the gifted but continues to perfume the hand of the giver as well.