When Connie Renz retired from a 32-year teaching career in 2000, she wasn’t ready to transition to a slower pace. She substitute-taught and tutored in her home for a while. After moving to a new community on the Key Peninsula in 2003 with her husband, Vic, Renz found some volunteer opportunities to keep her busy — she became involved with her local nonprofit community newspaper. Still, she missed one thing: working with young kids. At first, the grandmother of five would get so restless close to the start of the new school year, she would take her grandchildren shopping for their supplies.

“I missed doing something. I also missed the kids,” she said.

For the past five years, Renz has found a way to use her passion for teaching by volunteering as a mentor through Communities in Schools of Peninsula. The organization matches adult volunteers with students in elementary schools who need a boost with reading or math skills as part of an afterschool program. Renz volunteers to read to Minter Elementary students and tutors Purdy Elementary students in math.

“I’ve always liked to stay busy. Finding something to do with kids was really exciting,” said Renz, who had since recruited her husband, a retired railroad conductor, to be a mentor as well. Renz is also involved with the local Friends of the Library group and the couple volunteers for other organizations together, including the Key Peninsula News, Vic’s car club and their homeowners association.

Renz figures the two of them spend about 50 hours a month total volunteering for the various projects. Using the nonpartisan coalition Independent Sector’s figures for value of volunteer contributions in Washington State of $21.18 per hour (for 2008), that’s a contribution of more than $1,000 from the pair in “free labor.”

For them, it’s not about numbers.

“The best part is when you help a kid do something and two or three weeks later, he’ll teach another kid,” Renz said. “The kids feel treated special because it’s one on one. Vic likes it because the kids he used to mentor waive and give him a hug on Wednesdays (when he’s at the school) before getting on the bus. He’s their role model.”

For Belfair’s Liz Corliss-Clark, teaching and reading has also remained a passion after retiring from a 32-year career in education. And while Corliss-Clark is active with several community organizations in Belfair, she has found a true outlet for giving back through Global Volunteers, an organization that sends teams abroad for projects that include teaching conversational English. Last year, she spent more than three weeks in India through the program and recently, she returned from a similar trip in Ghana — and she’s already planning another, to rural Italy, next year.

“They’re eager learners,” she said of the students she taught on those two trips. “It would be wonderful if our students realized the value of their education — those students (in Ghana and India) know it’s their only hope for the future.”

Corliss-Clark traveled with a team of individuals from similar backgrounds and was completely immersed in the culture, sharing in the food and living in guest houses within the communities where they volunteered. The travel was reasonably priced, she said, and she had plenty of opportunities to visit sights and landmarks in her free time.

She said she has a wonderful balance in her life that includes family and friends as well as community service, and being a global volunteer contributes to that balance. “I’m a single woman and I’m fortunate enough to be able to go. This is a safe way to travel and for me, joining people who have the same goals and objectives as I do makes it even more worthwhile,” she said. “I can travel and see the world, and give back.”

Locally, volunteers are the backbone of most nonprofit organizations and many professionals who are “slowing down” in retirement are finding they can remain active by using their talents to give back. Newly retired Steve Parsons, who lives on Bainbridge Island, said he thought he would travel, garden, read and take up knitting once he quit a 45-year retail career — and he did all those things but something was missing.

“It was a shock to go from running eight to 10 hours a day and just stop,” he said. A few months after closing his pet shop last year (which he ran for a couple of years while grieving the loss of his partner), Parsons offered to volunteer at the Bainbridge Island Chamber of Commerce at the front desk.

“It was a good way to start,” he said. “I’m using the people skills I learned during my years in retail.” Since starting out in December, he has been looking at other ways he could use his talents at the Chamber, especially in conceptual design, and is exploring other organizations, such as the Bloedel Reserve, for a potential volunteer match.

“I want to give back and I want to make sure they (the organizations) take advantage of what I do best,” he said.

He said volunteering is not just about doing something to stay busy, it’s a rewarding activity that fulfills someone’s life “in surprising ways.” “When you volunteer, you’re in the receiving end of it,” he said. “You really receive a lot by giving… This keeps my sparks flying… It’s good for your health and it’s good for your mental faculties.”

That statement has actually been proven by research. Among the studies was a 2010 survey by United Healthcare and VolunteerMatch, which showed that seniors who volunteer tend to be more content about their emotional well-being and feel more in control of their health overall compared to those who do not volunteer. They’re also less likely to experience negative emotions like anxiety, loneliness and hopelessness and have a more optimistic look at life.

And the number of older volunteers is rising — a study by the AARP found that the number of self-directed volunteering (informal service) has gone up among adults 45 and older from 34 percent in 2003 to 57 percent in 2009; more baby boomers reported volunteering. The chief motivation, the AARP found, was the feeling of personal responsibility to help others.

That’s exactly what motivated Bill Fahlsing, a Bainbridge Island certified public accountant, who didn’t even wait to completely retire in order to volunteer as an adviser for SCORE (which helps new or aspiring business owners through mentorships and other programs). Fahlsing, who’s been a CPA for more than four decades, is semi-retired, still working in a tax practice after selling the biggest part of the business more than 15 years ago. He said when his doctor was getting ready for retirement, he told him everyone should give back to the community at that stage in their lives. It wasn’t medical advice, but Fahlsing took it to heart.

“I took it pretty seriously. I thought highly of him,” he said. “I truly believe in what my doctor told me, that all of us, when we get close to retirement age, should give back.”