a thread about volunteering

Lanturn314

Lanturn314

:heart:Volunteer Work:heart:​

I figured I'd post this thread so that people could talk about their experiences with community service. I know that a lot of you are in high school and college. Back when I was in HS and even when I was starting out college, I always wondered how I could get involved in new things to help out the community. It wasn't until I started talking to lots of other people that I figured out all the possibilities, and there are definitely things that I still don't know about that are truly worthy causes nonetheless! It's likely even harder for people who have graduated long ago to find ways to get involved, because there aren't as many structured things to choose from, but there are still definitely ways to help out. Doing community service is an extremely fulfilling experience, especially when you can see the results of what you're doing. We're all living in the same world, so why not help each other out? :toast:

I thought it might be useful for people to try to answer these questions:
What are you currently involved in?
What would you like to be involved in?
Any particularly fulfilling experiences you've had?
If you're particularly passionate about a certain organization, then post about it here!

It could give other people ideas, because nothing's stopping people from starting up a new chapter of an already-existing organization! And remember, every little bit of time, money, and dedication you put into volunteering helps! :heart:



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I guess I'll start this off by posting the things I'm currently involved in:

Global Brigades is probably my favorite of all of these. I'm president of the Dental division now, after having gone down there in January on the Dental brigade. I'm mostly familiar with the Medical and Dental divisions, for obvious reasons.
What we do is go down to Honduras to set up free clinics in rural communities who otherwise can't access health care. We work closely with doctors and dentists to provide patients with the best health care possible. The doctors do a physical examination of the patients and prescribe them with medications, which we provide for them and fill in the pharmacy. The dentist examines the patients' teeth and gives fillings or performs extractions depending on how severely decayed the teeth are, and also gives out fluoride for preventative dental care for children. We also teach kids how to brush their teeth, and we give them free toothbrushes and toothpaste. While the patients are waiting for their medications, we give a presentation on hygiene and healthy lifestyles in general.

There are two other divisions, as well: Public Health and Water. I don't know as much about them, but in any case, here's a video with more info on all four. Personally, I've had an amazing experience volunteering in this organization. The experience of being in Honduras and helping people out is amazing, and I made some of my best friends down there.

This is my sorority. It's unlike most sororities you might think of, because we're more focused on community service than on social aspects. We do all sorts of things around Baltimore: we volunteer in soup kitchens, plant flowers and pick up trash around town, paint murals, etc. We also often go to an event a nearby church hosts called Sandwich Sundays, where we make sandwiches for homeless people. We try to get involved whenever we can. We also raise a lot of money for the American Cancer Society, our official philanthropy organization.

What this organization involves is tutoring inner-city children in math and reading twice a week for two hours a day. Math and reading are probably the most fundamental subjects there are in elementary school, so mastering them is important. Each child is paired up with a tutor who caters lesson plans to the needs of the individual child. We have all sorts of educational games, worksheets, and other study tools to use, and it's a lot of fun! I generally teach younger students, but the kids we teach range from grades 1-5.

I've volunteered at so many different hospitals that it's pointless to list them all. The one I enjoyed the most was a tiny hospital in a small town in Massachusetts, because I got to know all of the staff very well, but each one had its really good perks. In general, I do all the grunt work that arose-- cleaning the hospital beds, running samples down to the lab, bring food to the patients, etc. Sometimes it's tedious, but overall, it was a really enjoyable experience. The thing that really sticks out to me was that normally, nurses are expected to do everything I do on top of caring for patients, and I'm quite busy as a volunteer. It feels really good to be able to take a bit of work of their hands so they could relax a bit!

The American Cancer Society is a very worthy organization that raises money for cancer research. These are the two main events they do to raise money every year. Relay is usually in the spring, whereas the walk is usually in the fall. Most high schools and colleges do both of these things anyway, so this is pretty easy to get involved in if you're just getting started with community service. You can't really see the results for yourself as much as you can with other organizations, but cancer research is pretty damn important, so it's still a great cause.
 
I've done a few local things, but my favorite was organizing and participating in a "bike drive." We collected, cleaned and repaired, and redistributing the collected bicycles to children in an underprivileged area nearby. A few friends and I also did a couple school supply drives to benefit the same area. I also really like doing neighborhood clean-ups and that type of thing; simple, low-key stuff that makes the community a little nicer.

Fed the homeless in Boston a little while ago, but I didn't like it too much. My sister and I were handing out soup and ham sandwiches, and some of the homeless would complain, "Oh, I don't like ham. Give me something else." Also had a few non-homeless people come and take our food so they could resell it in their Chinatown shop... Things like that can really discourage voluntarism, and I haven't volunteered in Boston since.

One of my favorite one-day events is coming up, the Hike for Hope. I love to walk anyways, so a five-mile walk to benefit others is a win-win situation.

Funny you post this now, because I'm being set up with a new volunteer opportunity at college tomorrow. As part of the honors program requirements, we have to do a certain number of volunteer hours per semester. I'm looking forward to it, as I haven't done much in the past year. I'm also hoping it will be a good way to get to know some fellow students.

Overall, I think volunteering is the most fulfilling form of civic engagement in which one can engage and provides much more tangible results than something such as voting. It's also been a great way to meet a diverse crowd of people.
 
I'm an assistant scoutmaster for the troop i used to be in. I try to turn boys into men though unfortunately its become more pussied and they learn nothing except first aid skills which i'm sure most of the kids would pass out if they actually had to do it.
 
I worked at a hospital over the summer (a long time ago) and when I signed up I kind of imagined it slightly glamorous like I would get to transport blood or clean bloodied tools or something like that

All I did was file tons of files every day and it was incredibly boring work
 
I've volunteered for a symposium on using projectors in performance and live shows. they have some very interesting devices and I got to click a few buttons on a computer about 6 times more powerful than my gaming PC. Also cleaned up the prop room of a theatre before too and boy the random stuff that is in there. Fake trees, coffins, deer heads. All sorts of crazy. I've also done some work at a kids soccer tournament/community festival. I monitored a car entrance for one day and the other I served free popcorn to kids which was quite fun. I was trying to get to know this one girl there also volunteering at the event but I was not successful.

I'm going to be volunteering for a music event later this month and I hope I'm able to be backstage or in tech since I'll actually know what I'm doing, which the person running knows about. I won't complain about being an usher but I feel I could really learn more behind the curtain.
 
I signed up for a club this year in high school that gives me volunterr hours through various events that we help out at.

Other than that I was in the student council through elementary so I helped there.

edit: Zaccheus that reminds me im taking lifeguarding this semester though I can't get my certification until later which sucks because I have to be 15 a month earlier than my birthday is -.-
 
Lanturn314 said:
What are you currently involved in?
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Nothing
What would you like to be involved in?
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Maybe something working with autistic or similarly challenged people
Any particularly fulfilling experiences you've had?
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No. I've worked in soup kitchens and good-will related things but they weren't at all fulfilling. The soup kitchens were like "gimme more oreos or i rape the wiminz" and the good-will was like "damn straight you gonna give me free shit"
If you're particularly passionate about a certain organization, then post about it here!
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I'm totally against the American Red Cross. Things like the Salvation Army are good, but Brother's Brother is the best
 
I don't have this drive to find ways to 'help the community' and I can't recall ever doing volonteer work (other than stuff like helping friends move??).

If I invest time in anything, it'll come with a paycheck.

Then again, I live in a society with a larger social welfare net than America. Perhaps that is the reason I am not so inclined to contribute?
 
I am currently not doing anything involving community service but I donate blood every once in a while. I used to be involved in Big Brothers, Big Sisters and volunteered with the Boy Scouts of America for a full year and racked up about 130 hours doing both. I also helped renovate houses with the Habitat for Humanity and also built playgrounds with another charity similar to Habitat. The only lasting memory I have of any of them is a kid lighting my favorite pair of pants on fire out of spite during a camping trip.

I am eh towards a lot of the charities out there except for the Sea World Parks Conservation Fund, the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity.
 
Volunteering at a local Pharmacy and a Senior Care home. I wrote a bigger post last time, so I'm not really inclined to write more, but I'd like to get more stuff done.

Although, a few friends and I have started our own environmental + welfare non profit organization and have/are organizing a bunch of things for it. Which looks nice on our resume, and got us a few awards throughout the city.

And finally, a week ago, I realised that I didn't want to volunteer at a hospital. Their starting position is "path finder and greeter" and fuck me if I want to tell people where to go. Pre med kids are so obsessed with the concept of volunteering for a hospital that most have lost the reason as to why they're volunteering in the first place.
 
Apart from some academic volunteering as a TA/tutor/etc I haven't done anything. Traditionally I don't really care about social volunteering because it's on a small scale, I can't see a widespread effect, pragmatism, etc (a problem compounded by doing debate in high school). It's not really a question of compassion or empathy but you could call it difficulty putting myself into the shoes of strangers whose stories I don't know.

I've known since junior year of high school that volunteering is "good" for applications, and that I really need lots of volunteer experience if I'm going to apply to medical school. But that really has had no impact on my decisionmaking because I'm more indie than Gouki and fly as fuck so I don't see the point in doing things because they are expected of me.

However, like most people, I like doing rewarding activities. One of the things I want to do with my life is to have a "large" impact on the world (scientific discovery, contribution to the humanities or arts, etc). Maybe it's a bit silly (very silly) to expect that this important impact will be my first one. I've heard so many times that volunteering is rewarding that I'm starting to believe it, even though I'm pretty cynical and ends-oriented in my decisionmaking. Now - note I used traditionally in the second sentence - I really want to volunteer for the sake of volunteering and improving others' lives, not just to volunteer because my peers are doing it, my parents are bugging me, or my college counselor is sending me passive aggressive emails. Maybe I'll even realize that saving the world isn't for me and my name isn't Harry Potter.

That was a joke by the way I don't think my ego is that big
 
I've done volunteer work at quite a few canned food drives, which is where we sorted and distributed canned goods to homeless people in shelters. I've also done work at the library, though that was just shelving books for a month. I was thinking of signing up to do work at the humane society but my schedules kinda full atm :/
 
As for the people who have had bad experiences volunteering in hospitals, I guess it just depends where you go. Maybe I'm spoiled, because my two main locations are Boston and Baltimore, both of which are known for their outstanding medical communities. The only tip I can give you guys is do research on what positions different hospitals offer, because it differs from place to place. Also, you can usually get a position that involves more patient contact if you talk to the head of volunteering and say you're thinking of becoming a doctor some day. Then again, the other positions are important, too, if the more medically oriented stuff isn't your thing. Some hospitals have programs where you can play with the little kids while their parents are in the hospital or you can work at the gift shop or any number of things.


Also, maybe one person's actions alone don't have much impact, but collectively, a group of people working towards the same end can have a huge impact. And I think even having a big impact on one individual person's life is an accomplishment, and that's generally what a lone person would be able to accomplish. However, in a slightly larger group, more things are possible. When I went down to Honduras, the medical/dental team saw about 300 patients a day who wouldn't be able to get any sort of care whatsoever otherwise, and even though their village had a lot more people than that, it's a great start. When our brigade leaves, another one takes over, so the villages get continuous access to free medical care. Public health education goes even farther, though: the leading cause of death in Honduras is actually diarrhea from drinking contaminated water, and so we teach them to boil the water instead, which prevents many unnecessary deaths.

Granted, I'm a hopeless idealist, so I'm probably being overly optimistic, but I actually think that every little bit of volunteering helps a whole lot more than most people realize.
 
Back in 2008, I volunteered (with my family) at a turtle hatchery at Mon Repos and that was pretty good. Just stuff like tagging and counting eggs and new hatchings (very cute).

For the last two years I have been volunteering at a local special school. I do it through school but it is still good to help the kids with an athletics program, learning some things or just play with them.
 
I volunteered last year at my old junior high school helping the kids with their homework and stuff, and I also volunteered at a soup kitchen the past summer. I plan on going back to the middle school this year as well. As a member of NHS, I have to tutor someone one-on-one with something that he/she is struggling in and will hopefully be able to do so.
 
I had to do volunteer work for school at a food bank, that was some bs, so boring :s

The best part was we only worked for like 2 hours and the supervisor there wrote down we worked for 15 LOL
 
I shelved books at my local libary (read: vaped in the bathroom and read their graphic novels/stole the yugioh cards in their shounen jumps/read whatever I was supposed to be shelving/shelved the books in the last 5 mins before I left) once a week for two years since my high school had a volunteer hour requirement to graduate. I think it was something like 100 hours, and I just barely made the cut. I sometimes did it sober, but oftentimes it felt like busywork that didn't help anyone other than the 12 year old girls who read the WARRIORS series that made up 70% of the books I had to shelve.

I am going to take the rest of this post to have a quick speak about this series, WARRIORS.

fading%20echoes%20omen%20of%20the%20stars%20cover.jpg


It is about cats. I cannot imagine cats having thoughts more advanced than "I wonder how painfully I can eviscerate that mouse before scattering its entrails across Amir's kitchen floor so he has to mop it up later." These cats live in tribes or clans or communes or some other stupid hippie-style settlement. I have not actually read any of the books, but they are generally in trilogies and have words like "quest" and "adventure" and "hunt" in the title, presumably to appeal to little girls' mundane sense of excitement. While it may sound sexist to say this, girls play with barbies and read about Ramona Quimby's travails, not to mention cats. Boys read about pirates murdering ninja dinosaurs in the past to prevent the morlocks from comandeering HAL to take over this Brave New World in 1984. Who watches the pirates? The Watchmen maybe, or Superman.

Anyways, I had to shelve anywhere between ten and thirty of these, all credited to a woman named Hunter. Why didn't she call her cats hunters? Cats are not warriors, I have never seen a cat really fight anything. Cats are hunters, and often slowly and sadistically torture their prey prior to eating them. My cat, Mitten, actually would just torture and kill her prey, preferring Meow Mix to squirrel for food. I can't imagine why, having tasted Meow Mix one day when my negro friend, Selah, told me some was chex mix and I grabbed a handful because I was very high and looking for some delicious munchies. I was instead greeted by something that does NOT taste like Tuna or fish of any sort, despite the claims on the box.

At any rate, I do not like volunteering, because it only helps people who are not me, and I think I don't like people who are not me.
 
In high school I volunteered at 2 middle schools, and at my high school.

I also got volunteer credit for working in a lab at UCI, mainly organizing research data (sitting in front of computer, etc) one time i got to do some junk with some rabbits, that was sort of cool.

I have also been involved in protests and other forms of political activism, and during college I have cooked at Food Not Bombs and other food kitchen type places.

On working in hospitals: in my experience its not much fun, and not very rewarding unless you have enough ins to get you into the clinics (you probably need to know the doctors, because im not even sure its legal but w.e)
 
i hate volunteering, and i especially hate how it's become something of a requirement. charity =/= obligation. for high school i had to 150 hours minimum of volunteer or some type of extra curricular activity, and made up pretty much all my hours. the only ones i didnt make up were for stupid organizations i was barely apart of, only on paper technically since i was kind of a ghost member and just weaseled my way through with some signatures. volunteering is a fucking joke.
 
is volunteer credit a real thing if so doesn't that undermine the concept of volunteering
 
Lanturn314 said:
As for the people who have had bad experiences volunteering in hospitals, I guess it just depends where you go. Maybe I'm spoiled, because my two main locations are Boston and Baltimore, both of which are known for their outstanding medical communities. The only tip I can give you guys is do research on what positions different hospitals offer, because it differs from place to place. Also, you can usually get a position that involves more patient contact if you talk to the head of volunteering and say you're thinking of becoming a doctor some day. Then again, the other positions are important, too, if the more medically oriented stuff isn't your thing. Some hospitals have programs where you can play with the little kids while their parents are in the hospital or you can work at the gift shop or any number of things.
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Positions that are half relevant to anything medical are filled up in about an instant due to the saturation of pre med kids + asians whose parents pressure them into doing in Vancouver. Honestly, if it were a choice between taking care of old people and talking to them on a regularly basis, and showing people where the goddamn doctors room is when there's a map right next to them, I'd take the former in a heart beat. I'm not volunteering so that I can look nice to medical schools, because hell, that's what everyone seems like they're doing; I'm doing it because I give half a shit about what I do and how I grow as a person, and about the smallest impact I can make on someone's life. I've become cynical about volunteering at a hospital because the people who I know work there are either hopelessly attached to the concept of getting somewhere like medical school, that they've forgotten what their job actually entails, or want to get the hell out because it's useless. But then again, take my opinion with a grain of salt, because I've applied to a few hospitals and didn't get so much of a reply back from them.

I also think it's pointless they make volunteering a requirement, which kind of water downs the point of volunteering. Let those who want to volunteer, volunteer, and those who don't, do whatever they feel like. Volunteering is about actually wanting to be there and give some of your time to a cause you feel is worth it.
 
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