Alvin Cavin: Faithfully doing small acts of kindness.

"I'd estimate Alvin Cavin weighs 90 pounds, but 89 of those pounds make up his big heart. He keeps busy by giving to others," says Connie Moore, activity director at Cedar Crest Manor nursing home in Medicine Lodge, Kansas.

Cavin, 89 [in 1994], is a volunteer with a big heart and a big Stetson hat. Alvin began coming to the nursing facility when his wife, May, an Alzheimer's patient, was admitted in 1985. He rarely missed a meal with May. Though "retired" from operating a dairy farm, Alvin milked almost a dozen cows before arriving for breakfast with his wife. Between lunch and supper, Alvin came to replenish May's ice pitcher.

Before long, he volunteered to fill every other resident's, too. Even after May went to be with the Lord in November 1986, Alvin continued to help out at Cedar Crest Manor. At supper, he set out napkins and coffee cups. If residents needed assistance with their wheelchairs, they got "Mr. Cavin's escort service."

"Life's so much better when you get your priorities straight," Alvin explains. "It begins when you make the Lord your first priority."