Volunteering

Volunteer work doesn’t cost you anything. All you have to give is your time and you’re rewarded by feeling good because you’ve helped out a worthy cause. Where you can share your time are many and can match your interest: young people, sport, animal welfare, arts and heritage, environment and conservation, health/care work, or campaign work. One of the most popular charities in the US is the soup kitchen which provides food for the homeless. Soup kitchens usually need the most help around Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holidays. If you would like to volunteer a neat site is http://www.volunteermatch.org/ based in the United States. Aside from identifying the nearest organizations to you, they also allow you to select an area of interest.

There are a variety of ways to volunteer. There is even an option called virtual volunteering! If you are seriously considering volunteering, the Independent Sector, a non-profit information center provides the following tips:

1. Research the causes of issues important to you.


2. Consider the skills you have to offer


3. Would you like to learn something new?


4. Don’t over-commit your schedule.


5. Non-profits may have questions about you too.


6. Consider community groups (aside from hospitals, libraries, and churches): day care centers, Neighborhood Watch, public schools and colleges, halfway houses, community theaters, fraternal organizations, retirement centers and homes for the elderly, Meals on Wheels, church or community-inspired soup kitchens or food pantries, museums, art galleries and monuments, community choirs, bands and orchestras, prisons, neighborhood parks, youth organizations, sports teams and after-school programs, shelters for battered women and children, historical restorations, battlefields and national parks.


7. Give voice to your heart through giving and volunteering.


8. Virtual Volunteering is possible if you have computer access and the necessary skills as some organizations now offer opportunities to do volunteer work over the computer.


9. Be a year-round volunteer!
   
   Trivia:
   • 22 million adults are involved in formal volunteering each year.
   • Ten million people volunteer each week.
   • Formal volunteers put in some 90 million hours of voluntary work a week.
   • The economic value of formal volunteering has been estimated at over £40 billion per year.
   • Six out of ten volunteers said volunteering gave them an opportunity to learn new skills.
   All statistics taken from Davis Smith J (1998), The 1997 National Survey of Volunteering, published by the National Centre for Volunteering.