What Motivates Volunteerism?

I read an editorial in the Stuart News this morning written by Aileen Pruitt on volunteerism and it got my thinking juices flowing. Why do people volunteer? Why should people volunteer? If you volunteer does that take a paying job away from somebody else? If you volunteer one time they keep calling you to come back, don’t they? Hummmm….

I started volunteering at age 16. My sister and I were “Volunteens”* for the Red Cross in our home town in Ohio. We got to wear uniforms that mimicked candy-stripers uniforms only in blue and white and little caps with a red cross on the front. We felt very important. Our “job” was to assist the aids with setting up the lunch room in a nursing home for the ambulatory residents. We served them coffee and tea and cleared the tables when they finished. After a week or two of ‘waitressing’ we asked if there was anything else we could do. We started wheeling some of the patients back to their rooms and chatting with them. Soon we were visiting with several of them, reading to them and doing small sewing projects. My sister told me recently that one of the women asked her to write to her son every week. One of the nurses later told her the woman’s son was dead. Shirley kept on writing the letters. One of the women must have picked up my interest in travel and gave me old copies of Arizona Highways.

I still remember this first experience and how I felt, the sights, sounds and smells of the facility. But most importantly, I remember how it made me feel – good! It started me on a journey to give back. For me this has not been a uniform effort and my methods have varied. I don’t believe there are any rules of how it should be done. You know the expression “just do it”. Well there you are. Just do it.

*The Red Cross no longer has ‘volunteens’. They now have other activities for teens.