Volunteering

It would be so easy to sit here at the beach and vegetate. It’s quiet and usually peaceful as long as the world’s news doesn’t intrude through the TV or internet and the weather stays calm. And then, there are occasional days when just vegging out at home watching the world go by makes good mental-health sense. But, if I want to be able to keep tying my own shoes, getting out and involved with the community and the world is not only rewarding but necessary.

There are lots of ways to get engaged with the community. But the first question to come up is “Why?”.  I think the best overall answer to that is the same reply I used to give my kids when they asked that question – “Because”. The variety of opportunities does not lend itself to one answer that fits all our urges. It’s not just altruism, i.e., “wanting to give back”, but it may be. Volunteering may originate from a long term hobby which leads to a local group concerned with the same thing and, in turn, develops into volunteer work either directly or through the contacts being made.

Just as likely, the reason to volunteer may be to acknowledge a long-held interest or desire, or to “fulfill a dream”. Have you always wanted to fly an airplane, jump from one, drive a race car or boat,  learn to play an instrument, or go back to school as a student or as a teacher. These aren’t volunteer positions but they illustrate latent passions that, when we think about it, motivate us to get up off the couch and get involved in something.

Volunteering may or may not relate to any actual experience we have or any particular expertise and, more often than not, it will not lead to employment. Remuneration isn’t the volunteer’s goal. If it was, it would be part-time work and that’s not what this is about (getting reimbursed for expenses though really helps). We may simply seek the socialization that is involved with being a volunteer. Often, just the interest in doing something we’ve never done before is the motivator. When I first retired from engineering and management work, I thought it would be fun to become a kindergarten to second grade teacher. Young ones at that age are little sponges that absorb learning readily and, generally, they aren’t old enough yet to be behavior problems. Their sense of discovery in learning something new is amazing to watch develop. With some investigation, that didn’t work out but it did motivate me to find something through volunteering that fit the need to get out and get busy.

The next question is “where”. As a practical matter, volunteering is best managed by staying local. It minimizes traveling, creates accessible new friends and, most importantly, fulfills your own community’s needs. So, what are some local opportunities? Perhaps the most obvious opportunities are service clubs – Lions, Rotary, Kiwanis, AAUW, Soroptimists, Community Foundation, etc. A community Historical Society is another prominent group. Aside from the social interactions, each has a particular focus that requires volunteers, such as collection of eyeglasses for reuse, overseas outreach, scholarships for local students, provision of a color guard for public events, oversight of community parades, historical preservation, etc. Beyond service clubs are numerous local community groups run by volunteer boards with very limited or no paid staff and which use a multitude of volunteer members. Senior Services for example needs volunteer drivers for medical appointments, meals-on-wheels and center/event support. Friends of the Library sponsor events and programs. Churches have a variety of volunteer needs. United Way oversees the sponsorship of a number of grants to local organizations. Red Hat ladies provide woman-power to many civic activities. Several artists and art organizations volunteer their artistic talents and products. Environmental groups include volunteer parks development and maintenance, trails development and maintenance, marine program activities, and land use review and comment. Our local animal shelter provides a vital community function and runs mainly with volunteers that operate and maintain the facility. Our local fairs are managed and produced by volunteers. Many groups adopt a section of County road for litter pickup. These are just a few of the multitude of available local volunteer organizations and activities.

Children’s groups such as Boy and Girl Scouts, Big-Brother/Big Sister, 4-H, Little League, soccer, and numerous others are in constant need of volunteers. My first volunteer work was as a little league coach in southern California, fresh out of the Navy in good physical shape and full of energy and optimism. Our team did well and had an excellent pitcher that threw hard and was ready for Pony League but not old enough. One Saturday at practice, I was catching this pitcher and our smallest player, barely old enough to be playing, came to bat. He was choked up fully half the length of the bat just to be able to make a full swing. After a couple of pitches which he cleanly missed, he swung again and just tipped the ball. It deflected upward over my glove and impacted squarely on the end of my nose. Unhappily, I wasn’t wearing a catcher’s mask and, instantly, there was blood everywhere – bad example for the kids! So, in order to make lemonade from lemons, I called the team around me and used the situation as a learning experience for them to ALWAYS wear the mask if catching. There was a further irony to this. The small boy that tipped the ball was the son of a lady that worked at the same place as my mother. On Monday my mom stormed in to work in mock anger and accused her coworker’s little son of breaking my adult nose!

Several years later, I was the den father for a group of cub scouts. We had great fun working through the badges, wolf, bear, etc. But our major accomplishment was that every single boy in the den earned his Webelos badge, the highest you could go as a cub.

As a further example of a volunteer experience, at one point in the late 1960’s, a youth drop-in center was formed in Bellevue to provide a safe place for young people to gather in the evenings. I volunteered to become a “rapper”, a person who would simply be available to talk with any kids that dropped in. It’s where I learned what it’s like to see the world through the eyes of a teenager suffering from schizophrenia. With training, I went on to become a “flyer”, a person that would go out in the streets to intervene in various kinds of youth situations. Those situations included drug overdoses, drug induced hallucinations/paranoia, mental health breaks, threats of suicide, or whatever came up on the spot. We worked in pairs, wore a “bell boy” (early pager) and would be on call 24/7 for a two week stretch. Callouts at night were common and this work was stress inducing, but at the same time was one of the most rewarding volunteer jobs I have ever had. I spent part of my 50^th birthday searching for my partner and a kid in trouble but without success. The address I had proved to be phony and, after several hours of searching, I came back home dejected and found a surprise birthday party organized and perpetrated by a group of friends. Their diversion really worked to get me out of the house for a while!

Periodically, a one-time group of volunteers will gather to accomplish a specific purpose. The Camano Island State Park was founded this way some years ago as was the new Rotary-supported Camano  playground that was planned for a year and built in a matter of days by a very large group of volunteers. Volunteers were also responsible for the pro bono acquisition and development of Freedom Park at Terry’s corner on Camano.

Government agencies use a surprising number of volunteers in advisory or other support activities. This is especially important in the current times of diminishing budgets. Examples are a number of boards and commissions that provide a citizen voice and recommendations on a wide variety of subjects as diverse as land use planning, mosquito control, water resources, workforce development, aging services, roadside cleanup, local parks operation and weed control. Other volunteers support our first responders in the form of Sheriff office duties, citizen patrol, on-scene emergency support, Red Cross aid, emergency preparedness, and fire district and law enforcement equipment support. Beyond local government needs, the state has a large number of boards and commissions that provide advice to the Governor and the various state agencies on virtually every subject that the state addresses from cemetaries to transportation to aging and public health.

With the advent of the 2012 political season, candidates and issues will demand an army of volunteers. Duties will involve fundraising, advising, doorbelling, phone calling, sign placement, research, and a lot of “grunt work”. Shortly after moving permanently to Camano, I was drawn by a local news article to a meeting of the newly formed Camano Community Council, a statutory group that sought a say in Camano Island land-use planning. After attending meetings for a while, a Council vacancy came up. I volunteered and was voted in as a council member. We struggled mightily with comments on and a local version of the County’s Comprehensive Plan. This went on for several years during which time, Council members had to stand for reelection and the County Commissioners went to court to get our group disenfranchised. The County prevailed and we were forced to abandon the effort. At the same time, a volunteer group formed on Whidbey to pursue the same objective of working with the County to create a new, State-mandated Comprehensive Plan. I joined with them and after two years of intense work and meetings, the County approved a plan that at least partially included citizen input. Lingering frustrations from that experience led me then to decide to run for a County Commissioner position which proved successful.

A major activity of many volunteer groups is fundraising. This is an important function where needed and can occupy a significant amount of time to be successful. As a person gets more involved volunteering, it’s easy to get overcommitted. Thus, an ability to say “no” when reaching that point is an important characteristic of a rewarding and sustainable volunteer commitment.

So, let your passions come out, follow those interests and you’re bound to find rewarding experiences by volunteering. Count on finding a lot of fun and satisfaction, developing long-term friendships and memories to last a lifetime. As for the “when” part, there’s no time like the present to get involved. Just get up, tie your shoes while you still can, and start looking for the next opportunity.