Chastity Vaughan holds a guitar donated to the fundraising event by the Chicago Music Store. Vaughan is helping to organize the event.

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Chad Schneider, Chastity Vaughan and other members of a local chapter of an insurance and finance industry group think volunteerism is like insurance: It is an investment in quality of life.

"I think it is essential to help out in the community at large. If the organizations that are strong and growing don't help out, then who is going to? It is part of our social responsibility to make our surroundings better," said Schneider, president of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA), Tucson Chapter, and broker development coordinator for Aflac.

The professional organization is one of eight chapters statewide. For more than three decades the local chapter has provided financial support and in-kind donations to a variety of non-profit organizations ranging from Brewster Center Domestic Violence Services to Therapeutic Riding of Tucson (TROT) and Arts for All.

Members have logged volunteer hours cooking and serving holiday meals at the Gospel Rescue Mission and have adopted numerous families through the holiday Angel Tree program. Last December, they collected 425 gifts for 47 families, and 25 volunteers spent hours wrapping and boxing gifts for Square and Compass, a non-profit organization affiliated with Children's Clinics for Rehabilitative Services.

Vaughan is a field sales representative for Portamedic and serves as the NAIFA Tucson unit's community service chair. She believes that she is fulfilling both professional and personal obligations through her commitments to the community.

Vaughan is also a board member of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, president of the Parent-Teacher Organization at Ford Elementary School and 2007 recipient of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors' Richard J. Martinez Community Service Award for Arizona.

She said the desire to help others is in her blood: Her father, Robert Castro, was active with service organizations in Douglas; her great-uncle is former Arizona Gov. Raul Castro. Other members of her family would all do without in order to give to others, she said.

"There are so many underprivileged people in the world. Poor and homeless people need to know that we won't walk away from them just because of the way they look," Vaughan said.

"We don't know if they have made bad decisions or had a hard life, but I know the best thing to do is to help them. If I ever had bad luck one day, I would hope someone else would do the same thing for me."

Community-building often begins with supporting youths, according to Schneider, chairman of the upcoming NAIFA Tucson annual golf tournament, silent auction and raffle on Aug. 22 at The Gallery Golf Club at Dove Mountain.

For the past five years, proceeds from the event have benefited Therapeutic Riding of Tucson. This year the tournament's continued growth means it can expand its patronage to Arts for All, which is dedicated to providing accessible education, training and experience in the arts to children, particularly those with special needs.

Relationships with organizations such as NAIFA Tucson are a lifeline for non-profit organizations, according to Frank Hernandez, Arts for All assistant director.

"Right now it is a time in the economy where everyone is feeling the pinch, from single parents to big industry and every section of the community," he said. "Lots of times people think non-profits have grants or contracts or other funding sources, but it is important the community doesn't forget about non-profits because we don't have big bank accounts or overseas investors or cushions to fall back on."

Hernandez believes that neither non-profit nor for-profit organizations can solve the community's problems on their own and that joint efforts extend the reach of each type of organization.

"This is why partnerships like Arts for All and NAIFA work: They are good at selling insurance, and we are good at providing after-school arts instruction. By partnering with us, they do what they do best and we do what we do best . . . to put their hard-earned dollars to work to benefit the community," he said.