Spending more than two years as a Peace Corps volunteer gave Patti Shannon the direction she needed after retirement.

Today, Shannon, 59, works nearly full-time hours voluntarily organizing 15 high school Red Cross clubs on O'ahu, work that earned her the distinction as the American Red Cross Hawai'i Chapter O'ahu Volunteer of the Year.

Shannon, a mother of two grown sons, doesn't see the award as a big deal. Volunteering is more for her than for those she helps, she said. Still, in a span of a year, she expanded the Red Cross high school program from just three schools to 15 across the state.

"I love to teach," said the Kapahulu resident. "Teaching the sense of the volunteer spirit is one of the things we do. Volunteering is actually very selfish. It makes you feel good and it has many rewards."

Red Cross clubs are school service groups that help the American Red Cross fulfill its mission by teaching high school students how to volunteer in their community, assist with disaster preparedness and swimming classes and send care packages to Hawai'i troops overseas. In addition, the clubs help raise money for the chapter, which is a nonprofit, nongovernment-funded agency.

"Patti's been wonderful," said Coralie Chun Matayoshi, American Red Cross Hawai'i Chapter chief executive officer. "We would not have all these clubs without her."

Matayoshi had been running the school campus programs for four years before Shannon stepped forward and essentially took over the entire program, Matayoshi said.

"She's like a full-time staffer," Matayoshi said. "She does all the work with the students, not just the organizing, but the physical labor like at a beach cleanup."

EMBARRASSED BY PRAISE

The accolade embarrasses Shannon. She doesn't feel that a volunteer is a hero.

"It's embarrassing because when you do something that everyone can and should do, it is not heroism," Shannon said. "I'm just donating some of my time."

Shannon and her husband, Joseph, gave 27 months of their time volunteering with the Peace Corps in 2005. Before that Shannon had never really volunteered, except for the occasional assistance at sporting or school events for her sons.

After she retired from her job as a yearbook representative and he retired as a Junior ROTC teacher at Moanalua High School, the couple went to Jamaica for 27 months and lived on $14 a day teaching people how to turn their crafts into marketable items.

Then Hurricane Ivan hit and the craft office — really two sheds pushed together where she was helping others — was blown away and her work became about restoring the island and the people she had grown fond of.

"When I came home, I couldn't sit still," Shannon said. "I didn't want to go back to work, but to help others. I surfed the Web for volunteer positions and saw the Red Cross, and I thought I could do something."

Bob McIntosh, the Mid-Pac Institute faculty adviser for the Red Cross club on campus, said Shannon is the go-to person for the students. Last year the club presented a check for $264 to the Red Cross from a two-day bake sale.

"If every high school in the state had a well-run, organized Red Cross Club, it would help the Red Cross chapter because it isn't government funded," McIntosh said. "Our goal with the kids is to have the volunteer spirit carry through to the rest of their life."

Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com.