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When a French civil servant read that an elderly woman in Paris had been deceased in her apartment for four months before anyone noticed, he didn’t just shrug and move on with his day — he asked what kind of society allows that to happen, and then quietly set about changing it. The result is l’Heure Civique (“Civic Hour”), a growing movement across France that asks nothing more of its volunteers than an hour a month: delivering groceries, playing Scrabble with nursing home residents, walking schoolchildren to music class. Its founder, Atanase Périfan, built the program around a disarmingly simple premise: “There are 65 million people in France. If each person contributes just one hour — and who doesn’t have an hour? — the potential is massive.” 24,000 volunteers later, the math is proving him right. Pascal Guy, who first came to the program as someone who needed a free meal and now volunteers regularly, perhaps says it best: “Most of the time, it does me good to come here, to feel a bit useful.”
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