Deborah George-Feres

As an executive coach, Deborah George-Feres has built her career teaching executives how to focus their days so they can be more productive in the workplace. She helps clients define their goals, clarify the work, and develop the skills they need to succeed. Deborah is also a lifelong advocate of volunteerism, so when she saw a listing on Catchafire to become a skill-based volunteer with the American Cancer Society, she jumped on it. Her motivation was to give back and to honor her mother, who died from cancer.

Deborah says, “I wanted to contribute and give of my time. So why not combine the skill set I have with something I’m passionate about? It was a perfect fit.” As it turned out, it also helped Deborah come to terms with her mother’s death. She says, “Volunteering helped me get to the other side of my grief. It was critical to my healing process.”

Volunteering is not just fundamentally what everyone should do, but what we must do. Deborah says, “People are the change agent for cancer. We are only as strong as our volunteers. It’s important to bring different perspectives and different viewpoints of how to work the problem and eradicate the disease.”

For Deborah, the best part about volunteering is the people she meets. “The relationships that I’ve established and just the fact that this relationship helps me quantify my beliefs while seeing it from another’s perspective,” she says, “makes it worth the time you give. What I’m giving is what I’m receiving at the same time.”