Certainly my colleagues here on the panel probably could offer as many examples as I can. The work we have been doing on volunteers I think is both a good news story and a bad news story. The good news story is that, particularly in the older population, older persons are perhaps the most dedicated volunteers for the other older people in their communities. Particularly in small town settings and in rural communities, they are also very vulnerable.
Often, when the older persons who are volunteers start to have their own health issues, the volunteer system starts to break down. I think what we're facing in a lot of our small towns and rural areas, and we do a lot of research in small towns and rural areas, is the fragility of these systems. They tend to work just the way they work in the larger urban areas, but they tend to be much more fragile, because the numbers are small. When the key people can no longer volunteer or when they burn out, which is one of the other findings we've had, those volunteer systems break down.
That's why you're also seeing how difficult it is for the volunteer sector to step in, in these communities, where the private sector isn't prepared.