A November oil spill in the San Francisco Bay revealed a problem with California's response to disasters. More than 2,000 volunteers showed up to help, but many were turned away because they lacked training. It took state and federal agencies a week before training procedures could be put into place.

Last week, in an effort to ensure such snafus don't occur again and to increase opportunities for volunteerism, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger created the secretary of service and volunteering, a first of its kind Cabinet-level office. And he gave profuse credit to his wife, Maria Shriver, for suggesting the idea.

Don't worry, it does not mean a costly new layer of bureaucracy. The state already has in place the staff and funding for this new office — CaliforniaVolunteers — a governor's commission established in 1994 by then-Gov. Pete Wilson.

The only major change is that CaliforniaVolunteers Executive Director Karen Baker becomes the new secretary and will take on additional duties — helping in disaster-related planning and response efforts, coordinating volunteers at disaster sites, managing donations that flow into the state for disaster relief and going after new donation opportunities.

And, in the spirit of serving, Ms. Baker has vowed to forgo the salary increase — from her current $130,332 to $175,000 a year — noting that with the state budget woes, "This is not the time for a pay raise."

It makes sense to have one coordinator to assess need and to direct volunteers to where they will be most useful. As Gov. Schwarzenegger told The New York Times in a recent phone call, this office is needed because volunteers, many times, were "unable to do the kind of work they want to for the state because we are not as organized as we can be."

Ms. Baker told The Times that part of the problems during the November oil spill came about because various state agency heads didn't have a fellow Cabinet member to talk to.

Now, they do.

And to show how a coordinated effort can bring swift results, when the governor called Ms. Baker to help straighten out the snafu with the oil-spill volunteers, she and her staff came up with a new way to train volunteers. Previously, it took 24 hours of training before a volunteer could help in such a cleanup and animal rescue. Now, it takes only four hours.

California has a strong tradition of volunteering. Currently, 6.5 million people volunteer their time in hospitals, shelters and food banks, to name only a few. During the spate of fires in the fall, 10,000 volunteers registered to help in the San Diego area alone.

CaliforniaVolunteers has 30,000 volunteer opportunities involving arts, education, disaster preparedness and other areas of interest listed on its Web site, http://www.californiavolunteers.org/.

When he signed the executive order creating this Cabinet-level office, the governor noted, "Volunteerism ought to be on the highest level of our state government."

Ms. Baker, in remarks after becoming the new secretary of service and volunteerism, said, "Governor, if there are two words that it all boils down to, it's, We serve.' "

California often leads the nation in a host of areas that improve quality of life. It does so now with volunteerism.

What about you? Will you serve? Visit CaliforniaVolunteers.org and help make this effort a model the rest of the nation would be proud to follow.