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One volunteer of year for catholic charities selected from 260,000

A nationwide review of 260,000 Catholic Charities volunteers has resulted in the 2011 Volunteer of the Year Award winner: Michael Schuette of St. Rose, Illinois, in the Diocese of Belleville. The Most Reverend Edward K. Braxton, Bishop of Belleville congratulated and honored him in the name of the Diocese at a luncheon at his Residence on Wednesday, September 28, 2011.

For more than 15 years, Mike has supported the work of Catholic Charities of Southern Illinois. During the last ten years, he served as chair of the CCSIL Board and for the last 15 years as the chair of Poverty Services, a volunteer-run agency of CCSIL which addresses the root causes of poverty by helping people overcome barriers to gainful employment. “Congratulations to Mike Schuette! We thank you, Mike, for the giving of your time and energy and for caring about people who are often forgotten in our society today,” said Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA. “We are so blessed to have you and others like you in our midst. You inspire and challenge us.”

Mike decided to get involved helping others as a teenager when his best friend unexpectedly died. “I learned that life could suddenly end and you wouldn’t be able to do all the things you could have done. That motivated me.” In his early 20s, Mike started teaching prison inmates to read. A shockingly high number of them did not know how to read well or at all. “It was really neat to see somebody reading and comprehending for the first time. You could see the excitement in their eyes as they realized what a big thing they had accomplished. You felt so good for them.”