Resident dedicated to community service
by KEATON T. DEPRIEST Cheektowaga Editor

Michael Karas of East Amherst believes that community service is something a person does that can never be taken away. It's a way for people to feel good about themselves, as others feel good about the help they are receiving.

For more than four decades, Karas served the community of Cheektowaga by volunteering for the St. Joseph Hospital Foundation.

Karas was recently recognized for his 44 years of service to the foundation. Although he decided to end his service to the foundation, he said the close bond with the people at the foundation has created a second family for him.

"I have had a wonderful relationship with the community as well as with the people I worked with at the hospital," he said.

Through his 44 years with St. Joseph Hospital, Karas served as chairman, vice-chairman and trustee of the hospital board, chairman of the Finance Committee, director of the Hospital Foundation and co-chairman of the 1967-68, 1994-95 and 2005-06 capital campaigns.

Karas said the key to having years of continued success in life is for people to put every effort into what they do.

"Whatever you put in, you get so much more out of it," he said. "The more that I put forth, (in community service) the more I (received)."

Karas added that he never looked at working for the foundation as business. He instead thought of it as service to the community, something he did out of kindness.