St. Cloud Resident Logs Over 50,000 Volunteer Hours Since Retiring [VIDEO]

ST. CLOUD - St. Cloud resident Marlyn Beaudine may be retired, but some may still call him a work-a-holic considering he's logged over 50,000 hours of volunteer work since he retired.

Beaudine retired over 20 years ago from a local telephone company and now spends most of his time volunteering. He says after he retired he wanted to learn how to do all the things he wasn't able to at work.

"When I retired I said I'm going to go out and do things I haven't been able to do before," Beaudine says.

Beaudine keeps a constant list of ideas and volunteer projects he's working on. Some of the projects include: building wheelchair ramps for the disabled in the area, repairing homes, doing yard work, building houses in disaster struck areas, and helping organizations like the Red Cross and Meals on Wheels.

One of Beaudine's favorite volunteer memories came from trips to help build houses in Puerto Rico in the 1990's.

"You had people who had absolutely nothing, they had the clothes on their back and the Salvation Army was feeding them," Beaudine says.

Beaudine and a team of volunteers worked in the slums to make repairs and build homes for those who desperately needed them.

When asked about his motivation to continue volunteering, Beaudine says he has a philosophy in life that goes hand in hand with his volunteer work.

"When you leave this world, you're not going to take anything with you except what you gave away.," Beaudine says, "and I plan on leaving with  a huge load."

For those interested in getting started with volunteering this holiday season, Beaudine says there's no shortage of agencies in the area that will teach you and get you started. The key is to go and learn something.

"I learn something new everyday, and it's fun." Beaudine says.