About five years ago Arthur Healey realized he was just sleeping in on Saturdays and decided he should be doing something better with his time.
Healey, a lieutenant and 26-year veteran of the Salt Lake City Police Department, headed to the St. Vincent de Paul Center to do volunteer work with one of his sons, who then was 14. But the younger Healey soon found a job, so wife and mom Laurie Healey began accompanying her husband each weekend.
That began five years of washing dishes every Saturday to help the center, which provides lunch to 700 to 1,000 people six days a week.
Arthur Healey insists it's no big deal.
"I figured I could take one day a week to make it a little easier for someone else," he said. "It's not a big thing."
Not everyone shares that opinion.
The Utah Bankers Association recently gave the Healeys its Heart of the Community Award for their volunteer efforts to help low-income and homeless people. Bankers in Utah last year gave more than $175 million in charitable contributions and their employees donated more than 110,000 hours of community service.
"The Healeys have washed over a quarter of a million dishes as service to our community," said Howard Headlee, president of the UBA.
"We have found through years of experience that somewhere between the best efforts of our institutions and the real, human needs that exist in every community, you will find unmet needs or gaps in services," Headlee said.
"Therefore, every community needs committed and caring individuals that will step up and put these unmet needs on their shoulders and fill the gaps," he said.
"When that happens, miracles happen."
Arthur and Laurie Healey, Salt Lake City natives, both point to their parents as the inspiration for their extensive volunteer efforts.
Arthur said his folks, Russell and Adelaide, took him to help at church-sponsored events from the time he was little. "Whenever we had a church activity I always thought cleaning up afterwards was part of the activity. It was just a part of life to help other people."
Laurie's parents, Larry and Elaine Maxwell, did the same for their daughter. Laurie grew up assisting her dad, the former head basketball coach at Highland High School, with scoreboards and keeping statistics, as well as being active in church.
That philosophy has carried over into their own family, and the Healeys have tried to instill the volunteer spirit in their four children, DeLacy, 23, Tracy, 21, Arthur Jr., 19, and Douglas, 15.
Over the years, Laurie has coached soccer and Little League, has been been active in the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, served as PTA president and sings in a women's choir that visits local nursing homes.
Arthur has been an assistant Scoutmaster and, as a police officer, has volunteered to teach "police interaction" in driver's education classes at Skyline High School.
As a couple, the Healeys have volunteered to help the announcer at Skyline football games, helped as stage managers for church plays, worked with the Jaycees on the East Millcreek parade and breakfast, helped with food drives and coordinated a large neighborhood party.
The couple, both members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also have worked in the church's Jordan River and Salt Lake City temples.
"We never do anything big or important," Arthur Healey said. "We just fill in where somebody is needed."
He insists they get more than they give: "It makes life richer and fuller when you help someone else."
E-mail: lindat@desnews.com