One beautiful fact of life is that one cannot genuinely try to help another without helping oneself. Perhaps that is why Jon Gabelein says he’s happiest when he’s doing something for someone else.

“Jon puts other people’s needs ahead of his own,” said Joetta Dillman, a Clinton resident and Gabelein friend.

Dillman said Gabelein has raised and trained five service companion dogs for people with various disabilities over the years. She said he raises one dog at a time in his home and takes the animals everywhere with him. Getting the dogs ready is an 18-month project, after which he turns the dogs over to their permanent owners.

“He falls in love and gets very attached to every dog, of course.” Dillman said, but noted Gabelein doesn’t think about his own feelings when he does this.

“Putting other people’s feelings first, is just a way of life for him,” she said.

This one activity out of the many he is involved in every week is a metaphor for how Gabelein lives his life. He seems so interested in other people that it’s difficult to get him to talk about himself. His positivity and exuberance over ideas to help others are visibly apparent when speaking to him: He can’t keep his hands and body still.

This excitement is evident when he talks about the dogs.

“It’s really cool knowing how much these dogs will change a person’s life, by giving them independence and companionship,” Gabelein said.

The consummate volunteer — he is a volunteer firefighter and EMT, a Big Brother for two children, a 4-H advisor and a South Whidbey ski bus chaperone, amongst other things — Gabelein puts his desire to help into his job as coordinator for the Island County Big Brother Big Sister program. The program matches adults with children who need role models in their lives. The “bigs” and “littles” in the program spend time together on a social basis.

Gabelein said he could not have designed a more perfect job for himself. If he didn’t need money to live on, he would happily do his job for free.

“I thought if I selected a job I would love, I’d never have to work another day in my life. If I choose something for the money, that wouldn’t guarantee me happiness, and I might just dread getting up every morning to go to work,” he said. “I can’t believe I get paid for this.”

Lorena Welch, a South Whidbey Intermediate School student support specialist, said the work Gabelein does is important.

“Jon helps build relationships in students’ lives, which offer them new vistas, beliefs, and opportunities from where they are,” she said. “People that spend any time with Jon begin to see themselves as capable, caring, making-a-difference kind of people. He sets kids up for success and affects them forever.”

Gabelein doesn’t see himself as doing anything special. He said anyone can achieve the goal of helping others in any job. It doesn’t take much either — a smile, a kind word, listening, or just a genuine interest in other people.

Haley Blavka, a student at the intermediate school, said she loves it when Gabelein comes to the school to have lunch with her or to play with her and her friends.

“Jon is all the kids’ hero, and especially mine,” she said. “He’ll play whatever were doing. It doesn’t matter if it’s turning the rope, or basketball, or hopscotch.”

“To me, he’s a close friend.”

Gabelein says there is nothing so fulfilling as knowing he has had a positive effect on another person’s life. Recently, while doing his usual “recess people watching” at the intermediate school, he observed a student he had been spending time with during recess. This student went over to another student who was sitting alone, just as she had been before she met Gabelein.

“I watched her include this student in her group of friends,” he said. “She knew how it felt to feel all alone,and then be included, and she passed that good feeling on to someone else.”

Gabelein said he learns a lot from watching other people.

“Don’t limit yourself to your own experiences or successes,” he said. “You can learn from watching others triumph. Other people can show us our own potential.”

What Jon brings to his job and volunteering has always been part of his personality. Janie Gabelein, Jon’s mother, said her son has kept a positive attitude no matter what life brought — even when he was diagnosed with bone cancer at age 15.

“He went through treatments and surgeries for two and a half years yet kept a positive attitude the entire time,” she said. “He’s also been a caring person, considering other people’s feelings before making choices.”

There have been times that literally stepping into another person’s shoes have affected the direction Gabelein has taken in life, like the time he put on a firefighting outfit for Halloween.

“The gear was about six sizes too big for him, matching his big smile,” said Mel Grimm, captain of Fire District 3’s Bayview station.

Grimm said he knew Gabelein could follow in his father Gary’s footsteps as a volunteer firefighter.

“It makes me proud when I’m talking to a neighbor that was in need and they say, ‘You know, Jon Gabelein was one of the people that helped me,'” he said. “Jon has become someone I trust and value. He shows his love of family and community by quiet acts of giving of himself.”

Grimm remembers another outfit that transformed Gabelein. Last Christmas, Gabelein took a turn as Santa Claus delivering holiday baskets to South Whidbey families.

“He told me it gave him a feeling that he couldn’t really explain,” Grimm said.

Ann Slattum, one of Gabelein’s fellow EMTS, said she remembers a fun fire district drill that Gabelein surprisingly missed. Later she found out that he had gone to see children at a school event.

“I can’t help but think of Philippians 2:3-4 (Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourself. Each should look not only to their own interests, but also to the interests of others),” she said. “To me this describes Jon.”