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Robert Schafer

Robert Schafer
Robert Schafer at the Washington State Capital

Volunteer retirement

Looking at Robert Schafer's calendar, it's hard to believe he's retired.

Mondays it's the Thurston County Food Bank.

Other days he and his wife, Betsy, volunteer at the Salvation Army Food Kitchen or at Habitat for Humanity, a homeless shelter or the Boy Scouts clean-up day.

And once a week, Robert Schafer is a guide at the Washington State Capitol.

"Volunteer work is one of the things we committed ourselves to once we retired," says the former professor and chair of the Department of Sociology. "We're active in the community and do interesting volunteer work as well.

"It's one thing to talk about doing something for the community and quite another to get your hands dirty in needy situations."

Schafer and his wife Betsy (former professor in ISU's department of Food Science & Human Nutrition) have moved back to Olympia, Wash., where they met while he served in the Army at nearby Fort Lewis. He spent 34 years on campus as a student (1967, M.S., sociology) and a faculty member in the Department of Sociology.

These days volunteer work dominates his life - that and time spent with a son who lives in the Portland area, as well as hiking the abundant national parks in the Pacific Northwest. But the time Schafer spends volunteering as a guide at the Washington State Capitol gives him his classroom "fix."

"I enjoy that," he says. "It puts me back in the classroom. I talk about the history of the state, the history of the building and the legislative process.

"It takes me back to the classroom and I'm constantly studying to do this. It's an on going preparation for the classroom because I'm forever learning new things and changing my presentation."

The Schafers' volunteer work isn't limited to just the Olympia, Wash., area. The couple are members of Global Volunteers, an international humanitarian agency based out of Minneapolis.

Since retirement, they have volunteered at a peace center in Ireland, in Australia with an Aborigine tribe to fix-up homes, and in Mexico working with street children and teaching English in high school and at a community college.

They just returned from Costa Rica where they helped build a community center in a remote mountain village.

"Our goal is to volunteer on two international missions a year," Schafer said. "We hope to strike a good balance between our personal travel and travel for volunteer work.

"Part of this is opportunistic," he continued. "We want to visit new regions of the world. We spend a couple of weeks as tourists but feel it is our obligation to assist in the areas we are visiting.

Schafer admits that his profession as a sociologist has played a role in his retirement activities.

"These are things I would talk about in class," he said. "This isn't something that evolved when we moved to Washington. It was a direction we planned.

"Working internationally with an Aborigine tribe or with Mexican students is extremely rewarding. On a tangible level we're contributing to the community. On another more abstract, but none-the-less real, level we're contributing to international good will."