Volunteering

Becoming A Big Brother or Big Sister

February 23, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Finding your path in volunteering is not always easy. Many of us have the desire to volunteer though not necessarily a clue about the best way to go about it. For instance, volunteering with the homeless or with people who are addicted to drugs can be too intimidating for many to take on. One set of people who could use your volunteering help is big brother big sisters.

There is perhaps no greater reward in volunteering than mentoring a young boy or girl and filling a void in the child’s life. Often times these children have no brothers or sisters and they find it difficult to learn proper social interactions. They don’t have the right people to bounce things off and learn and grow. Being a big brother and big sister has many rewards and one of those is helping children understand what their peers are up to. Knowing how to interact with others comes with practice and you can help kids along that path.

It is also very likely that you could mentor a child who is a product of a painful divorce. As adults we know that a divorce is not the child’s fault but it is hard to understand that as a child. You feel as if had you acted a little better your parents would still be together. It could be your role to help instill in a child that they are not responsible for the divorce.

Plus, it is a whole lot of fun. Touching the life of a child is a great thing and makes you feel incredible inside. In addition to making a difference in a child’s life, you will reap unimaginable rewards yourself. No one says you can’t benefit from the act of volunteering as much as those you are helping.

Filed Under: Contributing, Volunteering Tagged With: Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Birth order, volunteer

Education Breakdown of Volunteers

February 3, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Each year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases statistics related to volunteering. The statistics break down the various demographics of volunteers such as breaking the volunteer population down by sex and race. One of the more interesting breakdowns is how the volunteering population splits by education level. Below is the breakdown of which groups volunteer from most to least:

1.) Bachelor’s Degree or Higher- More than 43 percent of those who volunteer have at least a bachelor’s degree. This comprises the highest category of volunteers. Many people pick up goof volunteering habits on their way to their degree and contine the tradition after they graduate. Others are just thankful at their good fortune and want to give back to the community.

2.) Some College- Those who didn’t quite get a degree but did attend some college comprise 31 percent of the volunteer population. That means 74 percent of those who volunteer have at least some form of college.

3.) High School Graduates- A high school diploma is the level of schooling achieved for about 19 percent of volunteers. Many times it is a requirement to graduate high school to fill about 20 hours out on the community volunteering. Though it is largely in the hands of the students, there are certain criteria that must be met in order for the volunteering to count towards graduation.

4.) Non-graduates- Less Than 10 percent of volunteers have not graduated high school. This group can include those who got their GED diploma or have no diploma at all. It is certainly uncommon to find people who didn’t graduate high school yet still have the opportunity to get out and volunteer.

It isn’t overly surprising that volunteers tend to be the better educated members of society. They are often in the best position to volunteer if they are economically secure and have the time and desire to get out there and make a difference.

Filed Under: General, Volunteering Tagged With: Graduation, High school, volunteer

As Jobs Are Lost, Many Turn to Volunteering

February 1, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

The economy is still shaky and many and turning to volunteering. A job loss can feel devastating and the process to re-join the workforce is often painstaking and tedious. However, that does not mean it can’t be productive. Volunteering is a great way to stay busy and feed the soul as you search for a new place of employment or a new career. Below is a list of you are likely to run into in the volunteering circuit:

1.) The Recently Unemployed- Your next employer does not want to hear that while you were looking for a job these last months, you didn’t really work on anything but a beer gut. Showing the motivation to commit to volunteerism while you await your next paycheck shows that you are a hard worker. Your next employer will be impressed that you would rather make a difference that catch up on beauty sleep.

2.) High School Kids- Volunteering is a fun way to connect with today’s youth. Remember when you were in high school and had to volunteer to satisfy high school requirements? Well, many schools are still sending high school kids out to gain some valuable experience in the real world. Get on out and talk with them.

3.) Housewives- Women who have any extra time in their day after taking care of their home will often get out and volunteer. Making a home and all the tasks that go along with raising a family is no small feat, but volunteering allows moms a different sort of community interaction than they might otherwise experience.

Regardless of your reason, you will not regret the decision to volunteer. Enriching the soul may sound cliche but the benefits are undeniable. A good nights sleep follows a bust and productive day. Get out and touch base with your community and you’re guaranteed to find it a rewarding experience.

Filed Under: Contributing, Volunteering Tagged With: Employment, High school, volunteer

3 Places to Find Volunteer Opportunities

January 29, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

If you are looking for a way to volunteer, you are going to find that there are different ways to volunteer in your community. Here are some places that you can volunteer in your community that will make you feel better and make a big difference.

Hospital – The first place that you can volunteer is at the hospital. There are a lot of things that you can do at the hospital, like handing out books and pushing around the snack cart. There are always volunteers needed at the hospital and they make a huge difference in cheering up the patients who are there.
Animal Shelter – The second place that you may find volunteer opportunities is at the animal shelter. Sometimes they get volunteers to play with the animals and just cheer them up. This is a great opportunity for people who love animals and want to make a difference at one of the animal shelters.
Nursing Homes – The third place where you might find volunteer opportunities are in nursing homes. The people in there are often old and feel as if they are unloved. Call up your local nursing home and see if there are any volunteer positions available and find out more about it.

When you volunteer, you are making yourself feel good and you are helping the people and animals that could really use your help. There is nothing more fulfilling than the feeling you get when you have made a positive difference in the life of someone who is feeling down. Volunteers are often the unsung heroes of the world and they are truly the ones that make a huge difference. Want to do something good in the world? Look for ways to volunteer in your community and make someone’s day a little brighter in the process.

Filed Under: Volunteering Tagged With: Animal shelter, Nursing home

Reasons Why People Volunteer

January 25, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

There are people who wonder why others so freely volunteer of their time. The truth is that there are a lot of good reasons why people volunteer. Here are some of the most popular and heartfelt reasons to volunteer that people have stated.

To make some new friends
To build professional and personal contacts
To build up self confidence and self esteem
To develop great new on the job skills
To really make a difference in our world
To increase his or her personal satisfaction
To put some more experience on his or her resume
To develop some people skills
To feel appreciated and needed
To explore possibilities for the future
To share skills he or she has with other people
To feel challenged
To earn some academic credit
To improve overall health
To have some fun!

A lot of people decide that they want to volunteer for the reasons above. When someone decides to volunteer at the hospital, it’s often because they are thinking of a career in medicine. But that doesn’t make their efforts and their choices any less valuable. It’s still admirable that they are volunteering their time.

When someone decides that they want to become a volunteer, they are making a statement to the world. They are saying that they want to make a big difference and they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart. It’s true that they are not getting paid for what they are doing and that it’s going to look good on a college application, but they are still giving up their time to help. It’s something that really is neat for them to do and it takes a special person to decide to volunteer. Not everyone is willing to give so freely of their time and their resources to get so little in return.

Filed Under: Community, Volunteering Tagged With: volunteer

A Halfway House Can Help People Succeed in Life

January 21, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

There are plenty of options if someone’s in trouble with drugs or alcohol. A lot of people don’t get the help that they really need, but others turn to rehab in the hopes that they’ll get clean and stay that way. If they aren’t in as serious of a position with their drug and alcohol problems, they might consider a halfway house. This is basically an in-between step between the real world and a rehab facility, and it can help people get and stay clean if they’re committed to feeling better and conquering their problems. These halfway houses all operate in basically the same way, in addition, so anyone who reads up on them or has been to one should basically know what to expect from one, no matter where it’s located.

Halfway houses help people adapt to the real world once again, and they offer counseling and support for people who are struggling, especially on those rough days when things just don’t feel right and a little extra help is needed. If you’re looking for a volunteer opportunity and a way to help other people, a halfway house can be a great choice. You can find out about ways to help at TheCyn.com.

There are plenty of ways to help people there, and keeping previous drug users clean and sober is a great feeling that you can really be proud of. Some of these people have mostly been shunned by society. By showing them that you care, and that you aren’t there because someone’s paying you to help them, you can start to restore their faith in humanity and make them see that there are good people in the world. They still have a lot of great experiences ahead of them, but they aren’t going to get to enjoy those experiences if they don’t stay clean.

Filed Under: Contributing, Society, Volunteering Tagged With: Addictions, Canada, Centers and Counseling Services, Halfway house, Health, Prison, Substance Abuse, United States

Community Fundraising Part 4: Carnival Tips

January 13, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

One of the most popular types of fundraiser is the carnival. If you are thinking about having a carnival to raise money, here are some steps that you can take in order to get the ball rolling on your carnival.

Begin the fundraiser by getting in contact with the businesses in your area and asking if they’ll donate money to buy prizes or donate the prizes themselves.
Have games such as fish pond, dunk tank, tossing rings over bottles, and other things like that.
Have a contest for hula hooping and get the participants ask for pledges for how long they are able to keep the hula hoop going before it falls.
Have a booth for popping balloons
Fill a really big jar with something like jellybeans, counting them as you go and have a contest to guess the number.
Sell cans of soda and juice at the carnival. Remember, you can recycle the cans and get some money from that as well.
Have donation jars spread around the carnival for those who don’t want to play any games but still want to donate to the cause. You might also consider charging admission to the carnival.
Sell food at the carnival for people to buy – things like cookies and brownies and other things are easy and cheap to make and you can make a lot and then sell them to raise more money.

There are a lot of possibilities for a carnival – the only limits that you will have are your budget and your imagination. Carnivals draw a lot of people and they can be fun for everyone. You can wrap a lot of things up in a fundraising carnival and that is why it’s one of the most popular kinds of fundraiser that people choose from when they need to raise money.

Filed Under: Community, Volunteering Tagged With: Community

Community Fundraising Part 3: Finding Volunteers

January 11, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

After you have decided on your fundraising goals and your fundraising type that you want to do, the net thing that you want to do is to find volunteers that you are going to use for your fundraising effort. Here are some of the things that you can do in order to find the volunteers that you are going to need for your fundraiser.

Ask for a list of people that have volunteered in the past for fundraisers or who are currently serving on other committees.
Let the volunteers figure out the interests that they have and delegate the jobs accordingly. For example, if someone wants to write letters don’t assign them to do some baking.
Ask each of the recruits for people who are friends and family and might be interested in supporting the efforts of the fundraiser either through helping out or giving donations.
Be enthusiastic so that your team is motivated to be enthusiastic.
Motivate your team through prizes. For the larger fundraisers, you can reward the team that has contributed the most. For example, if you have more than one committee you can given a larger prize for the teams and smaller prizes for the efforts that individuals give.
Get those who benefit from the fundraiser involved. For example, if the fundraiser is for the marching band the members of the marching band need to be active participants.

When it’s a worthy cause, a lot of people should be willing to help in the fundraising effort. Sometimes it’s easy to find volunteers for a fundraiser and sometimes it’s difficult. But when you use the tips that are listed above to find your volunteers, you should not have that much trouble finding people who are ready and able to give of their time to help the cause.

Filed Under: Community, Volunteering Tagged With: volunteers

Finding Charities with Canada 411

January 6, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

The vast majority of counselors recommend that their clients volunteer time at charities. Volunteering often improves a person’s

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mental health by helping them appreciate the little things in life. Most people also get a sense of satisfaction from helping others who are less fortunate.

Volunteering at a charity is a great idea for any person, even if you only have a couple spare hours during the week. The time that you invest improves your community and helps give you an improved sense of worth. If you don’t know what volunteer opportunities are in your area, then you can use Canada 411 to find charities that need your help.

Canada 411 is an excellent resource for volunteers looking for charity opportunities. The service provides much more than just the contact information of charities in your area. When you use Canada 411, you get information that includes the charity’s phone number, address and website address. You even get a short description of the charities to help you determine which ones match your interests.

If you find that several charities interest you, then you might want to make your decision based on location. Canada 411 not only gives you the addresses of the charities, but even includes a map that shows you exactly where they are located. This makes it easy for you to determine which ones are convenient for you. It will also help you find the charity’s location when you decide to visit them for more information or training.

Canada 411 makes it easy for you to take that first step into volunteerism. Most people find that volunteering significantly enriches their lives by helping them give back to the community and helping those who need it most. With the wide variety of charities based in Canada, you have plenty of opportunities available to you.

Filed Under: Community, Volunteering Tagged With: charitable organization

Considerations for Choosing a Volunteer Niche

January 4, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

If you are looking for a good way to make an impact on the world around you, one of the things that you can do is to volunteer some of the time that you have to good causes. Here are some of the ways that you can choose the right opportunity to lend your services and your time to.

Your Abilities – The first thing that you want to think about is what you can do. Do you pay attention to detail? Do you work well with children? With the elderly? Do you like animals?
Amount of Time – The second thing that you want to do is to think about how much time you are able to commit to the volunteer work. Some work requires more than others, so you should match it to the amount of time that you can devote to it.
Reason – The third thing that you want to consider when it comes to volunteer opportunities is the reason that you are volunteering. Are you volunteering in order to increase your chances of a scholarship? Are you doing it to help you look better on college applications or are you doing it because you just have some extra time and you want to help people?

These are the three things that you want to think about when you are looking for opportunities to volunteer your time. it doesn’t matter why you are volunteering – every good cause can use volunteers. But knowing why you are doing the volunteering, your abilities, and the amount of time that you can devote should all factor in to your decision. Volunteering is something that is very commendable and more people should do it. It’s just a matter of finding the right niche for yourself so you are working toward something that you believe in.

Filed Under: Volunteering Tagged With: volunteer