CAMP CASEY, South Korea — The Philippine wife of a U.S. soldier was honored Wednesday for 500 hours of unpaid work helping soldiers’ foreign-born wives with visa applications and arts-and-crafts projects in Area I.

A panel of Area I leaders appointed by Army Community Service chose Maria Charito Kinney as Volunteer of the Quarter from among 10 nominees whose volunteer work included English- and Korean-language teaching and computer training.

Kinney said she came to South Korea in 1996 and worked at several embassies before marrying Staff Sgt. Gordon Kinney of 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, in 2003.

Soon afterward, she put what she learned at the embassies to work as a volunteer, helping other Philippine spouses of U.S. soldiers with immigration issues at camps Gary Owen, Howze and Casey.

“I volunteered because I wanted to support all the family members. Most of them are Filipinas,” Kinney said.

They needed help with visa processing, visits to the U.S. Embassy in Seoul and other paperwork to help them move to the United States, she said.

Master Sgt. Kinney said his wife got other spouses involved in pottery at Camp Gary Owen. The couple’s home is decorated with many of the pottery figurines she crafted while volunteering, he said.

Maria Kinney said Philippine spouses gathered with her at the Pear Blossom Cottage to practice other crafts, including making macramé bags.

Area I also honored Headquarters Headquarters Company, Division Support Command, 2nd Infantry Division as Volunteer Unit of the Quarter. Soldiers from the unit spent 144 hours providing volunteer support for the United Service Organizations’ English as a second language program and 2nd ID’s Good Neighbor campaign in Area I, regularly working with students from three local schools, officials said.

Marilyn Higgins, wife of 2nd ID commander Maj. Gen. George A. Higgins, told the nominees and a large group of guests at Camp Casey’s Warrior Club on Wednesday that few volunteers remembered the first time they volunteered or why they volunteered.

“My grandfather would tell stories about the Depression, when families came together to mend fences or get in crops, especially when the breadwinner was sick and couldn’t look after his own family,” she said. “My grandfather was the beneficiary of people coming around to help him with his farm.”

At 15, she volunteered as a Red Cross “candy striper” at a local hospital, she said. “There is some hard work and maybe some unpleasant tasks as a volunteer. One day, as I was bringing ice and magazines around the hospital on a cart an elderly lady took out her false teeth and asked me to clean them. I took her false teeth in my hand, carried them to the sink and brushed and cleaned them to her specifications,” she said.

Volunteering meant helping others whatever the task, Higgins said.

“Volunteers are coming in to help the tsunami victims. I am sure they have run into many unpleasant tasks, but they are doing them to help the victims,” she said.

A volunteer who helped one person had made a difference, she said.

“What you do is both precious and inspiring,” she said.

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