If you ask Pastor Art Speight, head of Taking It To The Streets Ministries in Bremerton, civic engagement is alive and well in Kitsap.

In fact, the homeless advocate says that so many people are eager to help his ministry that he must turn some away.

“We are overwhelmed with volunteerism,” Speight said. “People are becoming a lot more aware and I think they are concerned about the plight of the homeless or people that are in desperate situations.”

Harrison Medical Center has more than 400 volunteers at its five locations, making deliveries to patients, escorting visitors, working at the gift shop and assisting in administrative tasks. The hospital has so many volunteer applicants it started a wait list.

But not everyone is spoiled by an excess of help. Chuckwagon is in need of volunteer drivers for its Meals on Wheels program. Its pool of drivers dwindled with rising gas prices a couple years ago and the vacation schedules of volunteers creates a constant need for more help, said Nancy Walster, the home delivered meals coordinator.

Naval Avenue Early Learning Center in Bremerton needs three times as many one-on-one reading volunteers as it currently has. Most difficult is finding volunteers who have the daytime hours to help, volunteer coordinator Jeronique Bartley said.

Meanwhile, Kitsap Habitat for Humanity reportedly drew 700 extra volunteers from the beginning of this year through March, lured by a free day at Disneyland or Disney World as part of its “Give a Day. Get a Disney Day” program.

Whether the motivation is training, help with vacation plans, school credit or simply for the feeling that one’s time is being used constructively, organizations large and small depend on the unpaid labor of community members. And officials with Kitsap non-profits say there is a place for anyone who wants to serve.

Of course not all organizations can offer free Disney passes, but at places such as Harrison Medical Center, many volunteers are interns or in job training. At the Bremerton School District, qualifying seniors can work for minimum wage and earn up to $600 per year as reimbursement for the school levy and bond portion of their property taxes.

Liz Wallace, social service director at the Bremerton Salvation Army, said incentives such as the Disneyland giveaway could be enough to entice away some of her volunteers. Even she was intrigued by the idea getting a free pass for a day of work.

“Maybe I could do it on my lunch hour,” she joked.

But Walster said while those incentives look attractive, they won’t affect Chuckwagon’s volunteer pool.

“I don’t think those are necessarily the people we’re looking for,” she said, adding that Habitat For Humanity is able to use a revolving door of volunteers on different projects. Most Chuckwagon volunteers are retirees and have been around for at least five years, including one couple that has worked there for 27 years.

“Once they start doing it, they tend to stay for a long time,” Walster said.

Lori Oberlander, executive director of Habitat For Humanity Kitsap, said that Disney’s service incentives were open to any organization that wanted to take advantage of the program. But Oberlander said that rewards offered by some non-profits wouldn’t be a detriment to others.

“Organizations that attract volunteers sell their mission and their purpose,” she said. “Volunteers, whether they’re with Disney or not, are still going to volunteer.”

Matt Wojciakowski, community engagement coordinator at the University of Washington Carlson Leadership and Public Service Center, said there are plenty of people who volunteer for the personal benefit — for example, the Carlson Center facilitates an AmeriCorps program in which students can earn up to about $2,300 in scholarship money for up to 900 hours of service. Among young people there’s a sense of “non-committal do-goodism,” he said, where they join a Facebook group under the guise of a cause or lend a one-time hand to a charitable activity.

“There’s a lot of potential harm involved with students going out into the community and a having short-term experience thinking they’re saving the world working at a homeless center for 20 hours,” Wojciakowski said, adding that there is often a separation between the privileged volunteers and the downtrodden beneficiaries they think they’re helping. “Raising awareness is really important, but getting to that level of being the change they want to see is sometimes a big step.”

Speight of Taking It To The Streets Ministries has a more optimistic view of the community’s volunteers, saying that growing economic woes are making people more compassionate.

“Volunteerism has always been in the heart of the people of Kitsap County, but just now there’s more of an urgency in their heart to respond,” he said.

Whatever the motivation is, volunteer interest among students and older community members seems to be rising.

Speight and Cathy Ungren, office manager at the Central Kitsap Food Bank, both reported an increase in volunteer interest. Wojciakowski said that University of Washington service learning courses have gained in popularity from 400 to 450 students per quarter last year to 550 to 600 students per quarter this year.

“There really is a lot of desire and drive, especially in the last few incoming classes, to have that altruistic motivation that they want to be active in the community,” Wojciakowski said.

Ungren and Nora Bopp, Harrison Medical Center volunteer coordinator, both said there is a rise in unemployed working-age volunteers, as a result of the economic downturn.

“The poor job market has provided a lot of talent because they can’t get a job or they’re changing their career field,” Bopp said, noting the hospital is seeing more volunteers between the ages of 18 to 35 than ever before.

And though social services such as the Central Kitsap Food Bank might be strained during a recession, the increased traffic is made up for in increased help.

“It’s been an unexpected rise in volunteerism balanced by a rise in client usage,” Ungren said.

Jan Brake of Silverdale is among the newer food bank volunteers. After being laid off multiple times in the past few years, the 55-year-old now works at the food bank until he can find a new job.

“I felt that it’s time to start giving back to the community,” he said. “I really like working down here. It’s a great bunch of people, a team effort.”

Curtis Allen, a reading volunteer at Naval Avenue Elementary, said he works there twice a week for the joy of helping Bremerton children. As a retired shipyard rigger who has volunteered at Naval Avenue for about 10 years, there’s no career or material benefit for him.

“I just love it, I love working with the kids and talking to them and kidding with them,” Allen said.

He’s not sure if he’s truly making a difference, he said. All he knows is that the serious kids he meets at the beginning of the school year are laughing and joking with him by year’s end, and the school always needs more help.

“I just thought that maybe whatever help I could give them would be beneficial,” he said.