What is Volunteering
Volunteering is generally considered an altruistic activity and is intended to promote goodness or improve human quality of life. In return, this activity can produce a feeling of self-worth and respect. There is no financial gain involved for the individual. Volunteering is also renowned for skill development, socialization, and fun. Volunteering may have positive benefits for the volunteer as well as for the person or community served. It is also intended to make contacts for possible employment. It is helping, assisting, or serving another person or persons without pay.
Volunteers do such a wide variety of tasks and jobs in your local and global communities. Volunteers do everything from stuffing envelopes to serving on boards of directors. They raise funds for charity, coach sports teams, run youth and children’s programs, deliver meals, shop for the elderly, help recent immigrants settle in, work to protect the environment, help feed hungry people, guide museum and art gallery visitors, and build homes for homeless people, and so on and so on. Volunteers are the basis for many of our earliest establishments, including Hospitals, Homes for the elderly, Orphanages, and several well known and long standing health and welfare organizations including the SPCA (Established 1869), the Canadian Red Cross (1896), The Victorian Order of Nurses -VON (1897), and Big Brothers Big Sisters Canada (1913), just to name a few. Take a few moments and think of the place that are driven by volunteers and the work that they do, the meals on wheels drivers, the parents of the PTA, the girl and boy scout leaders, the local minor sports associations, the porters at the hospital, the list can go on and on. Chances are you and/or your family are impacted by the work of a volunteer on a regular basis.
As our lives continuously get busier and busier, it gets harder to find time to donate. According to the National Statistics the number of those who volunteer are dropping. In 2013 12.7 million Canadians volunteered their time, compared to 13.3 million in 2010, that’s a 5% decrease. On the other hand, the need that volunteers service are on the rise. And so the cycle continues.
Imagine what the world will be like without the dedication of volunteers with a cause, what would the world be like if Rotary International did not have the mission to eradicate Polio, as a result Rotarian’s have contributed over US$850 million and hundreds of thousands of volunteer-hours, leading to the inoculation of more than two billion of the world’s children.
Please take some time to recognize the time and hard work volunteers put into your community and abroad to ensure that great Organizations can continue their work, and continue to change the world.
National Volunteer Weeks
- April 12-18 2015
- April 10-17 2016
- April 23-29 2017
