There are people who feel good about themselves - smug perhaps, but perhaps just merely satisfied - that they respond to the needs of their greater community by supporting their area Food Bank. Rarely, but occasionally there arises notice of someone in the greater community who has taken it upon themselves to do far, far more, out of a personal sense of responsibility to that larger community.

And their rather extraordinary commitment belittles in scope and sacrifice those who merely offer their voluntary hours and efforts to charitable and social institutions on a more haphazard, certainly less stressful basis. A woman has been recently named for her depth of commitment to the well-being of perfect strangers.

There is a term for charitable generosity when the donor does so anonymously, with no thought of personally benefiting from their charity. It is called altruism. A personal sacrifice or financial gift of sorts for the greater good of a community or an individual, done with no regard to being identified, receiving praise or appreciation, let alone monetary or recognition awards.

Someone, it seems, must have taken it upon themselves to name Cathrine Paquet, a perpetual donor to various charitable causes. She is 53 years of age, and has been a regular blood donor and is registered with the bone marrow transplant list. And she thought how spiritually liberating it would be to offer to donate an organ to someone in dire need. To be done anonymously since, she said:
"If you give somebody a gift, they feel obligated to return something to you."

"When I started this, I had a job and a husband", she said ruefully, speaking of her decision a year and a half earlier to donate an organ. Doctors recommended that she give a kidney since about 2,500 desperate patients were awaiting a new kidney to rescue them from their long, hopeful wait for an organ transplant, the alternative to which is generally a marked downward spiral in their life expectancy.

A year of health tests ensued. Eventually she travelled eight hours by train from where she lived in Low, Quebec to the city nearest the home of the designated kidney recipient. She entered surgery alone, thinking "If something's going to happen to me, I'm ready". The procedure took three hours. Initial recovery was spent at the hospital for a few days, then a move to live temporarily with her mother while she fully recuperated.

While all of this was in the planning stages some quite important changes took place in her own private life. She and her husband separated. And just before the surgery to remove one of her kidneys her employer informed her she had been replaced in her position as secretary for a physiotherapy office. A more qualified recruit had been trained in her absence from work.

In sharing the story of her anonymous donation she hopes that others will be encouraged to step forward and donate their viscera to those nameless others in dire need.