José M. Bermúdez

According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, volunteerism is defined as use of or reliance on volunteers, especially to perform social or educational work in communities.

Additionally, Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary defines volunteer as one who enters into, or offers for, any service of his own free will.

Any person who is a volunteer has a personal goal in mind — help.

My motivation to help can be summarized in four main categories:

• Help the community

• Spread knowledge

• Networking

• Personal satisfaction

For 73 years the Paul Laurence Dunbar Community Center has been accessible to minorities, initially for African-Americans, but quickly evolving with diverse minorities from different ethnic, social, mental and physical backgrounds.The center has definitely helped the West End of Butler with youth and adult programs for a low fee and sometimes for free. The center has strived for 73 years to make the West End of the city a better place to live, keeping our youth out of the streets and out of trouble.The center also has brought diversity to the community with different activities to allow diverse minorities to converge under one roof and experience the beauty of being diverse.

Everyone at the Dunbar Center, community members, facilitators, volunteers and board members, has something interesting to bring and share, allowing the center not only to promote diversity within its membership, but cross-link a unique source of knowledge to allow personal, professional and community growth toward a greater good.The potential of the Dunbar Center speaks for itself the minute you walk into the small building on Hansen Avenue. The staff and volunteers are always ready to help.I invite the community to visit and experience stepping in during a youth or adult program, and get a great sense of belonging that is unique to the center. It is a tacit goal of the center to spread knowledge about the great diverse community and the benefits of it to society, despite the fact that Butler is not considered a diverse community.

It is human nature to relate, to mingle, to achieve as a group. From this nature, the center allows a natural networking and personal satisfaction, when offering the different programs run by community members for community members.For years, the Dunbar Center has supported the at-risk and low income population in Butler with small resources, both physical/location and volunteers. However, this can be changed with the involvement and networking from the community.Once the rest of the community gets involved in having the personal satisfaction of helping, it will be like a snowball rolling down the hill to grow and spread in the community.Let’s get together at the Paul Laurence Dunbar Community Center and help the community to spread the knowledge of diversity, allowing great networking and achieving personal satisfaction.I am convinced we can see a diverse community in Butler, sharing as one and coming from any social, ethnic, race, religion, physical background, enjoying a community center where the only motivation is to understand and express with pride your diversity.José M. Bermúdez, 32, is a sales engineer at Du-Co Ceramics in Saxonburg.Originally from Venezuela, he came to the United States in 2002 to improve his English and complete a master’s degree in materials engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He has resided in Butler since 2006.Jose is a 2008 alumnus of Leadership Butler County, which gave him the opportunity to get involved, advocate and volunteer for the Paul Laurence Dunbar Community Center.