Why I Volunteer
Meet Victoria, One of Our Everyday Heroes
Victoria Van Inwegen has been part of the Cancer Can’t family since 2020, driving patients to treatment and leading our silent auction with heart and dedication. In this deeply personal reflection, she shares how volunteering became a source of strength, healing, and hope after unimaginable loss. Her story is a reminder that even in the darkest times, choosing to care for others can help light the way forward.
“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” My late husband, Patrick, so loved this quote (often attributed to Gandhi) that he kept a bumper sticker of it in his office at Whitworth University, where he was a professor of Political Science. It’s now at my bedside. By volunteering, I’m creating the type of world I want to live in. A world where we care for each other. A world where we help those in need.
I’ve volunteered in various ways for what seems like my entire life. Sometimes, volunteering was required; I did go to Catholic schools and a Jesuit University after all. As an adult, I’ve enjoyed the freedom of choosing when, and if, I volunteer. Sometimes life seemed so crazy that I couldn’t volunteer at all, and that was okay. Later, my choice of volunteering came down to what I could fit into my life with as much ease as possible. When my kids were school-age, I volunteered at their schools. I was “being the change I wished to see”, at their schools. I hope I was making that little piece of our world better. Sometimes my choice of volunteering stemmed from an experience that profoundly touched me. Years after I held my mom as she died from breast cancer at the age of 58, I started volunteering with a group that sits with people who have no one else to sit beside them as they breathe their final breaths. Every time I sit vigil with someone I feel like I am doing my part to make sure no one dies alone.
Always, volunteering has given something to me. Patrick died six years ago at the age of 45 from bile duct cancer. He was an extraordinary man who made the world better and his death was out of my control. I felt helpless is some ways. Cancer had robbed my children of their father and me of my happily ever after. Choosing to drive cancer patients for Cancer Can’t felt like taking a little control back from cancer. It feels powerful to be the one affecting change, to take action. It makes me feel helpful rather than helpless. Volunteering with the auction committee makes me feel hopeful rather than hopeless. I guess volunteering makes me feel stronger.
In his last email to students, a month before he died, Patrick told them, “Love is the answer.” He’s right. While I hope that through volunteering I have brought peace, empathy, connection, hope, and love to others, I know volunteering has brought those all to me. I wish everyone could feel those things. That’s the change I wish to see in the world.
About the Author:
Victoria Van Inwegen grew up in the Tri-Cities and met the love of her life on the first day of school at Gonzaga University. She and Patrick were married at St. Aloysius three months after graduation. They had packed a lifetime of adventure into 23 years when he died from bile duct cancer in 2019. Their son, Alex, graduated from college this year and their daughter, Gabriella, is entering her sophomore year of college. Victoria has been a "professional volunteer" for decades. She is a Cancer Can't volunteer driver and has run the Cancer Can't silent auction since 2020.
