Volunteer

I am writing this week, continuing our discussion on adults volunteering their time. I think another big reason that adults have trouble finding time or actually getting motivated to volunteer is because of what they might be passionate about. As a youth you might get involved with your church and go to a homeless shelter or soup kitchen and think that’s good enough.

As an adult you have more experiences and may have a passionate cause. Such as, breast cancer, it is very hard to donate your time to breast cancer research. It is easier to just send in a check and feel good about that. Most adults are so busy, they cannot find time to volunteer their time. But, in the long run this is really going to take a toll, because it all starts with youth. If the kids see their parents volunteering they will want to go along, or get involved as well.  I am sure we will see a much bigger Delcine as time goes on.

Volunteering for the environment?

I’ve been giving this some thought, and I believe the idea that Americans are willing to volunteer but don’t follow through can be applied to the Green movement.  I believe that recycling, composting, and being energy efficient are like volunteering for mother earth.

It’s amazing to me that so relatively few people recycle.  It’s not easy (not in Manhattan at least: loading your car full of trash and sorting it in a large warehouse), but the rewards and feeling of happiness that you’re doing one less thing to kill the earth is great.

What lead me to this analogy is that I was thinking of a person I know who is the Green Team leader at their school, yet at home she does not recycle.  She pays for the recycling people to come, and has a green bin at the foot of her driveway, but simply does not want to be bothered to put things in different containers  rather than one trash can.  How can this be?

Just as volunteers need to make that conceptual leap, so too must want-to-be environmentalists make the leap into actually changing their daily habits.  Any suggestions on how to encourage that leap?

Lack of Volunteers

After completing last week’s management dilemma, I have decided that most Americans have a willingness to volunteer, but are often unable to spare any time. Today our society demands that in order to survive, we must work harder and longer. After 8 or more hours of work, family obligations, and home responsibilities, most average people are exhausted. In our ‘working’ country, free time is diminishing before our eyes. Furthermore, due to these various ‘busy’ factors, most Americans have resorted to giving donations to charitable organizations rather than their time. How do you think this will affect our non-profit organizations in the future? If everyone decides to simply write a check for a charity, who’s going to run it?

Mandatory Fundraising

OK, I am going to jump on the band wagon like everyone else and talk about the mandatory fund-raising.   In last class was the first time that I ha heard about companies/high schools making it mandatory but, I think it is an AMAZING idea. I know that if I was applying for a job and they told me that mandatory fund-raising was a criteria, it would be a plus for me to work at that company. For one reason, I think that everyone one feels good about donating their time and money, and it’s a good incentive and gives people that little push they need to do something. I don’t think that companies should make it mandatory to donate money esp. when they push a cause on you (I hate that-put the sheets in your pay stub).

I also think a plus about mandatory volunteering and fundraising at work is that the company could give you a huge list to choose from. You would talk to other people at work (network) and if you didn’t have a passion you could easily find one by expanding your horizons and going to things with other people.

I think that in high schools they should make families and students to go volunteer together.   I think that the earlier that students learn about fund-raising and volunteering the more likely they will be to do it in the future. I wish I could have been more influenced to do these things when I was younger.

Community Service Made Mandatory?

I noticed that somebody posted about the question of mandatory community service, and I would like to through my two cents in about this topic. I snooped around the internet for some other’s opinions on the matter, and found this article by Rhonda B. Graham in Delaware. She believes that mandatory community service for high school students would instill a sense of community and national pride in teenagers.

For the most part, I agree with her. I don’t think we should make high school students spend all their time cleaning up the community, but I think if every student completed at least one “community outreach project” before they graduated, it would help them out in the future. Most colleges and employers these days look at more than just grades. They want to know the student was involved in things in high school, and all colleges that I know of have sections about volunteerism on their applications.

Also, I believe that most high school students have considerably more free time than people who are older and work full time, so it would be productive if they spent some of that time helping others. They also might be more likely to volunteer and care about their community later in life if they’ve had positive experiences with volunteering in the past. This is just my opinion, but I think that if high schools, colleges, and employers for that matter put a bigger emphasis on giving back to the community, everyone would benefit.