- April 19, 2024
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Most people who volunteer don’t do it for the recognition.
Mary Louk — whose husband, she says, claims she’s a full-time volunteer — is one of those people. Louk would prefer the attention go to any one of the many organizations she helps.
She’s directly involved in two volunteer organizations: she is one of two vice presidents for Flagler Woman’s Club and a board member of Flagler Strong. On top of that, she works part time at Crystal Vaults and volunteers as president of her condo association at Aliki Gold Coast Condos in Flagler Beach.
“I need to be out doing something,” Louk said. “I want to be out helping somebody, changing somebody’s life for that day.”
“I want to be out helping somebody, changing somebody’s life for that day.” — Mary Louk
Louk began her volunteering career a year after she retired from the grocery industry. But retirement without things to fill her day drove her stir-crazy, she said. Then, in 2006, the Flagler Woman’s Club entered her life.
The club was hosting yoga sessions at her condos, and they had organized a book drive for libraries in New Orleans that were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. As it turns out, Louk said, the libraries didn’t need the books, and now the club had to find a home for all the books they’d received.
That’s where Louk came in.
“That’s what I like to do, I like to problem-solve,” Louk said.
She found a home for them at Patrick Air Force Base in Brevard County and found someone she knew who was willing to transport them. Louk said she joined the women’s club after that and hasn’t stopped volunteering since.
Since then, Louk has helped the club expand their volunteer services, using her connections in Flagler Beach to find solutions to problems that need solving. After Hurricanes Matthew and Irma, Louk became an original member of Flagler Strong. A decade after she began, she volunteers most of her free time to charity work.
But it’s a team effort, she said; the women in the club support each other through all of it.
“It’s like a sisterhood,” Louk said. “I get very touched up when I talk about them because they do really good things for people.”
Barbara Macready, president of the Flagler Woman’s Club, said she considers Louk a sister. The two of them do everything together, Macready said, including dressing up for the annual Flagler Beach Holiday Parade — though that takes some cajoling, Macready said.
“She’s like my sister,” Macready said. “Everybody in this whole community knows Mary.”
Louk, Macready said, does everything behind the scenes. She does all the contacting and publicity for the Flagler Woman’s Club and is always ready to jump on the next thing, she said.
“I can give her anything and know she’s on board,” Macready said.
Penny Bennett, a fellow Woman’s Club member, said Louk is the definition of volunteerism.
“Mary is the ultimate volunteer,” Bennett said. “She works tirelessly behind the scenes as an organizer of charitable events. You don't see her name or picture in the newspapers because she is in the background, in the trenches, always working.”
Louk attributes her desire to help people with her father’s naval service in World War II and watching her eldest brother spend most of his young-adult life in Vietnam in the marines and then army.
She was about seven during the Vietnam War, she said, and saw first-hand the sacrifices men in service made.
“I just think [this is] my contribution,” Louk said.
But Louk is always ready to help someone in need, Macready said; she adapts and goes with the flow.
“There’s so much negativity in the world … and I just don’t have time for that. I just want to leave it a little bit better than when there.” — Mary Louk
“There’s a lightning bolt that hits her when somebody is in need,” Macready said.
The Woman’s Club has a purpose, Louk said, that exemplifies the organizations she’s involved in — people can make a bigger difference together than they can by themselves. Being part of a positive influence in her community is what she wants to do, Louk said.
“There’s so much negativity in the world … and I just don’t have time for that,” she said. “I just want to leave it a little bit better than when there.”
