The Volunteer Who Didn't Need the Rulebook

In 2019, a retired teacher named Margaret Chen started showing up every Tuesday morning at the Eastside Community Kitchen in Portland, Oregon. Nobody assigned her a task. No one handed her a checklist. She simply walked in, saw what needed doing, and did it — chopping vegetables, mopping floors, sitting with elderly guests who ate alone. The director once told a local reporter, "Most volunteers ask me for instructions.…