For 40 years, Karen Schade, 65, of Butler, planned and built advertising campaigns for companies like Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline that reached audiences around the world. So, when it came time to retire in April 2022, she planned her volunteer activities as carefully as any of her successful global campaigns.

A “huge fan of kids,” she knew exactly how she wanted to spend her time in retirement.

Just a week after retiring, Schade started holding babies every Monday morning in the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, a specialized unit for newborns who are born prematurely or have health problems. Since most parents are unable to be in the NICU with their babies 24 hours a day, the volunteers fill in for them.

“I always knew that I wanted to do something with kids,” Schade said. “Snuggling with the babies is such a perfect way to start the week.”

Her volunteer week continues at Broad Street Elementary School in Butler, where she works as a kindergarten teacher’s aide on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. She loves the job and the joyful children.

“I enjoy helping the teacher and especially love seeing how happy the kids are to see us. After school breaks, they run over and hug us,” Schade said.

Schade’s volunteer week wraps up every Thursday morning at the Cranberry Public Library, where she spends two hours pulling book requests for patrons and partner libraries. An avid reader, she calls herself a “library fanatic,” a love that began when she brought her children, now grown, to the library for story times. “I love the people here,” she said. “They’re so nice and easy to work with.”

What does she do on Fridays? “I’m off on Fridays; Fridays are for me” she said with a laugh. But Schade admitted she’s always anxious to begin her volunteer work week again in just a few days.

“Volunteering makes me very happy,” she said.

Like Schade, Butler County residents are channeling their retirement activities into new forms of service. For Kathy Godfrey, her volunteer work is with a loving, furry partner with a wagging tail.

Godfrey, 65, and her husband, Tom, moved to Cranberry Township in late 2024, just after Kathy retired from a 43-year career as a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner at UPMC Magee Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. Unsure what to do with her upcoming freedom, she mentioned her dilemma to one of her colleagues who came up with a novel idea. “She suggested that my dog, Grace, with her friendly nature and love of people, would make a perfect therapy dog.”

The idea appealed to Godfrey, and Grace, a rescued racing Greyhound, immediately began her certification training. After eight months of obedience school, she passed the Canine Good Citizen test with flying colors. The final step was joining the Alliance of Therapy Dogs, a nonprofit that registers, tests, certifies and ensures volunteer therapy teams who bring comfort and joy to people in hospitals, nursing homes, schools and other nonprofits.

Visiting opportunities are now presenting themselves in their new community, but after her long tenure at Magee, Godfrey says the hour-and-a-half weekly visits to the hospital will always be a priority.

“My heart is at Magee,” she said. Godfrey enjoys seeing her old friends and visiting patients who could use some extra love, such as those waiting for their chemotherapy treatments.

The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh in Garfield is a particularly welcome place, with excited children thrilled to play with Grace. “Sometimes Grace will have six little kids lying on her,” Godfrey said.

Godfrey and Grace are hoping to spend a lot of time bringing joy to people in local hospitals, nursing homes, schools and anywhere a little therapy by a caring person and her loving dog will brighten a day.

Volunteering in retirement takes many shapes in Butler County. At the Cranberry Public Library, it comes with bookshelves and request slips and a team of 34 women and one man helping to keep the library running smoothly.

When Gary Toth, 68, retired from his engineering career at Bettis Laboratory in West Mifflin two years ago, he knew his new life chapter would include volunteering in the community he and his wife Christine and their two daughters have lived since 1989.

He chose Cranberry Public Library because his family always loved going there.

“Our children grew up going to story time and using the library, and we always supported the library through our United Way contributions” Toth said. So, after retirement Toth decided to “give back” in another way through volunteer hours.

Now every Wednesday morning, Toth works where he is needed that day, shelving books, preparing them to be loaned to other libraries and handling other general library tasks. “It’s interesting to see what other people are reading,” he said, and he’s amazed at how many adults use the library and bring their children to story times and activities.

Of his status as the only man on either the staff or volunteer team, he said he enjoys the camaraderie with the women he works with and with a smile admits that he learns most by “keeping quiet and listening a lot.”

Schade, Toth and Godfrey are just three of the many retirees across Butler County who dedicate their talents and time to local organizations. According to local and national estimates, about 15,000 county residents or about 28% of people over the age of 60 volunteered in the past year.

Some volunteer work takes place on a larger scale with retired volunteers joining organizations that help hundreds of families every day.

Five years ago, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Victory Church Cranberry Campus, saw that many people in the Butler County communities had lost jobs and needed food, clothing and household items. The church initiated a “Help Your Neighbor” program that grew so large that in 2023, the ministry moved to a nearby warehouse in Zelienople. Now each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings, about 200 families drive to the loading docks at the warehouse to receive bags of food and other items requested through an online form.

None of this could happen without the 30 retired volunteers who do everything from registration, inventory, sorting, packing and loading the items into the trunks of cars.

Darleen Nagel, 68, a former employee of the Heritage Valley Health System, has been volunteering for the “Help Your Neighbor Program” since it started, and since 2023, oversees daily operations at the warehouse. Nagel said that since the loss of her husband, the work has become “a lifesaver for me; I want to stay busy.”

Debra Smith, 71, agreed.

Smith might be called a volunteer’s volunteer since she is responsible for making a cooked lunch for the volunteers on all three distribution days. On a recent Tuesday, she was finalizing taco spaghetti, two salads and dessert.

As the mother of a large family and retired nurse, Smith was used to caring for people in her pre-retirement days.

“I don’t know what I’d be doing if I didn’t have this. It gives me purpose,” Smith said.

From the hustle and bustle of the warehouse to the more laid-back atmosphere at Butler Memorial Hospital, the tireless work of senior volunteers is evident.

Bernie Carr, 83, co-manager of the Butler Memorial Hospital gift shop, has been volunteering four days a week for 21 years. The former nurse loves her work and co-workers at the hospital so much, she joked she might have chosen retail as her first career “if I knew that retail was so much fun.”

It’s obvious by the spotless gift shop with carefully arranged shelves, seasonal gifts, crafts, sports team clothing, and displays of personally picked candies, coffees and snacks, that Carr is great at her job.

Carr also volunteers at a local hospice and the Penn Theater, making her volunteer work more than full time.

Kay Huemme, 79, is the president of the hospital auxiliary, and coordinates the volunteer activities of about 75 volunteers, most of whom are retirees. Staffing the hospital gift shop and information desks; scheduling administrative and clerical help; and providing comfort and aid to patients and their families in the Emergency Room are her tasks.

She also volunteers for Meals on Wheels on the one day that she is not at the hospital.

Carr and Huemme love their work and enjoy fun visits with the staff. Both said that a vital part of their work in the gift shop is providing chocolate to staff members who have become good friends and who stop in the gift shop for a treat.

“People who have a stressful day just want chocolate,” Carr said with a laugh.

While many senior volunteer opportunities focus on education, health and wellness of the community, there are also opportunities for volunteering in the arts.

Just down the street from Butler Hospital is the Maridon Museum, which has housed the Asian treasures of the late Mary Phillips since 2004. Phillips loved Asian art and was a collector and dealer who accumulated original treasures obtained from Chinese missionaries or brought to America via exhibitions, church collections and through art historians or collectors. Almost every piece that is in the 800-item collection at Maridon was in Phillips’ home before she bought a former car dealership building and adjoining house and had the buildings completely refurbished for the Museum, classroom and offices.

Millie Pinkerton, a museum trustee, is a former Butler businesswoman, and president of the Butler YMCA. As one of seven volunteers and docents at the museum, Pinkerton heard about the museum and volunteer opportunity from her husband, who encouraged her to apply. Over the years, she has become an expert on the museum’s collection and especially enjoys giving tours to students.

For Pinkerton, volunteering in retirement is about something deeper than a person’s former work life. “What you do for others in volunteering is different from what you do for a living,” she said, pointing to her heart.

“It’s all about service and giving. There’s a lot of that in Butler County,” Pinkerton said.

For these talented volunteers, the end of one career is simply the beginning of another — a chapter of caring service to communities grateful for their time and heart.