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Volunteering

Geordie

Geordie

Geordie
volunteering is the practice of people working on behalf of others or a particular cause without payment for their time and services - Wikipedia

Who here volunteers for outside organizations?

What are your thoughts and feelings for those who work for outside organizations without payment?
 
I've volunteered a few times for places. The first time was to get some work experience and I was volunteering at an environmental agency. I did some office administration work and it was a nice place. At the end, I was given a nice reference for a job.

The second place I've volunteered at was at a charity clothes shop. I mainly just sorted out clothes and tagged them, and helped reorganise clothing on racks. There were some really nice clothes there! They were really nice people too, it was good to get out there a few days a week and have a chat with people.

I like volunteering, I think it's great. I think people should do it if they have the time.
 
I volunteer with my local social services. I work with 2 families whon have children on the spectrum - one with classic autism, the other with Aspergers complicated by other problems. I provide a respite service / buddy service so that the family can have a break and do things they wouldn't otherwise be able to do.

I really enjoy it, and have the benefit of actually understanding what is troubling the boys.
 
Geordie said:
volunteering is the practice of people working on behalf of others or a particular cause without payment for their time and services - Wikipedia

Who here volunteers for outside organizations?

What are your thoughts and feelings for those who work for outside organizations without payment?
Click to expand...


I volunteer for local non-profits in my community and it's fun. Because I value what privacy I do have, I will not say where I volunteer at. I feel that if you volunteer, you have a big heart and are generous. :)

Some places that you can volunteer at have benefits for you too. ^_^; One of the places I volunteer at, I get to take home some of the books I sort. ;)
 
i have 18,000 hours + doing work for animal related causes. i left a great job to do this because i thought the reason some humans were allowed to abuse and torture non-humans was the ignorance of the general population. well, i was going to change that. turns out i was the ignorant one, not knowing that, in general, humans do not want to know the truth of what happens at factory farms, at fur farms, at puppy mills, what the amish do to their animals, etc.

yeah, everybody was mad at michael vick but the truth is, dog fighting is going on in every medium to large city in the country. there is no effort by law enforcement to stop it, too little money to pay for officers.

our war in pakistan and afghanistan has succeeded in one way, the taliban had put an end to the horror of dog (and other animals ) fighting but now that the usa is in charge, dog fighting and other animal fighting has come back in a strong way. their national sport. one legislator in afghanistan wanted to petition the olympic committee to allow dog fighting in the olympics so afghanistan would have a chance to win some medals.

i ended up doing direct work with rescued animals. had some wonderful things happen. worth all my effort. when some could not be saved and had to be put down, i stayed with them. they deserved that much. do not regret a moment of the many hours volunteering but it did make me lose faith in humans.
 
I never volunteered, nor do I intend to. The fact that it's pretty much spending my time on doing the community a service is icing on the cake to make me to not consider it. The entire "work-ethic" comes down to I don't care for much, except stuff that I really, really like... and given I really like doing some "creative" stuff and not much else.

It's not that I haven't thought about the entire concept. I hear a lot of volunteering is animal related for instance. But I don't particularly care for animals. So I'd pretty much be volunteering for a cause which doesn't really get me motivated and/or interested. But that doesn't mean that I think anyone is stupid for doing so. By all means, if you enjoy the cause for which you're volunteering, do so.

On the other hand, I never really cared about money either. So "doing something for free" isn't to far off, of what I'd do. It just happens that the stuff that keeps me going isn't a community service, but if you're an artist (which I'm not stating I am) and you get your work out for free (or at least to break even in regards to materialcost), I still consider it volunteering.

Re-reading the intial post by Geordie, it makes me think about "my definition" on volunteering. If volunteering is about an "outside cause"... there's reasons why I don't care to go out a lot, which has nothing to do "fear" but more so for the entire "I don't care too much for a lot of society, as a whole". So... that makes it a pretty definite "no" as to volunteering.
 
Indeed, I think for the 'outside cause' for volunteering, it depends on how we approach on that cause.

For me, I had a ton of experience volunteering in autism/mental health-related causes, from doing odd jobs in the local autism centres to the planning and execution of activities that promote mental health awareness. Yes, they are indeed my outside causes, because I never really had my personal cause to work with, as I tend to live for the moment.

Volunteering as a student can somehow bring us insights on employment. I learnt how to be more aggressive and pro-active through past volunteering tasks, more so than studying in schools. It also gives us some experience in inter-personal relationships (to work with others). In addition, the cause to work with can be added to portfolios. So I am mostly positive about volunteering. It's not something to fill in the resumes, it's more of outlets to demonstrate our interests in certain areas.

In future, I am interested to work for organisations that have training programmes for young people living in the deindustrialised cities. The Occupy Wall Street protests and the 2011 England riots suggest a divided society between the haves and the have-nots. Hopefully I can do something to build a better society with the disadvantaged youths in general - as they are and will always be the hope for our futures.
 
I can see it as a gateway to another opportunity, especially if the organization takes enough interest in you, but unless it were a last option then I can't vision myself doing it full time. Even if I were to lose my job in the near or far future, I'd still need to find a way to make some profit doing something with the option of volunteering on the side, possibly to gain some references and credentials.
 
That's why I stopped volunteering after discussions with parents and friends. Their input is helpful. I have to focus on my career first no matter what
 
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