A White House official, speaking at a volunteer conference in Provo, commended Utah non-profit organizations and volunteer service.

Jedd Medefind, deputy director of the White House office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, was the keynote speaker at the Utah Commission on Volunteers annual conference at the Provo Marriott Wednesday and today. The conference was called "Service - The Sweet Life" and featured workshops and breakout sessions focused on volunteer organization and getting people involved in service.

The purpose of the conference, said Kathy Smith, the executive director for the Utah Commission on Volunteers, is to show directors of non-profits and volunteers all of the connections they can make and the resources that are available.

The conference was highlighted by an awards banquet luncheon on Wednesday.

"Having the deputy director from the White House here is an honor," Smith said.

Medefind spoke after six awards were presented to individuals and organizations that gave outstanding service in Utah this year.

"That's what America is all about," he said after helping to present the awards. He emphasized the importance of the volunteer work people are doing in Utah and the care they help give.

Medefind spoke about the desire to serve others as being part of something that has an impact all over the world.

President Bush launched the Faith-based and Community Initiatives office 10 days after starting his first term to attack need, Medefind said.

He said it was important to bridge the gap between impersonal governments and the people serving in the community. Governments are necessary, he said, and they have so many resources that aren't available any other way. But he also emphasized the importance of people in the communities getting out and serving their neighbors.

"Governments can't love. To do that requires something different," he said.

President Bush calls these people Social Entrepreneurs because they find new ways to solve old problems, Medefind said.

He gave many examples of ways things are changing so networking can occur between governments and organizations that already exist in the communities that need help, whether they are religious-based or community-based. He said it is important for the government to work with these organizations instead of weakening them by replacing them for a time with grants, and then leaving when the grants are done.

"It's like changing the course of a battleship," he said, to change impersonal governments into organizations that will help build relationships of service in their communities.

At the end of his speech, Medefind said volunteers may not receive the thanks they deserve, but that their children and grandchildren might someday, and said these non-profit organizers and volunteers were doing great things.

He told about a man he met on a train in Russia who had nearly died in a small town that had been cut off from supplies by the Nazis during World War II. The man remembered when the American soldiers broke through and brought supplies, saving this town. The man made a special effort to learn English during the rest of his life, so he could one day thank an American for what they had done. The first Americans he met were on that train, nearly 50 years after that experience.

During the conference there was also an opportunity for participants to help in five different service projects sponsored by different organizations in Utah.

Ladawn Stoddard coordinated these projects, which included hygiene kits for people living below the poverty line, pillows for children of deployed soldiers with photos of the deployed parent on them, care packages donated for kids who are removed from dangerous homes, writing letters to soldiers, and giving people seeds to grow produce to donate.

"We encourage everyone to think outside themselves and donate their time," Stoddard said.