"Why Volunteer?"
or Why Volunteers are Beautiful People.
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Benefits:
Number one item: self –esteem
Self-confidence
Self-worth
Reduces heart rates and blood pressure
Overcomes social isolation
Reduces life’s stresses
Companionship
Helper’s calm
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Summary: The fact that volunteering can have a significant and measurable effect on health has become undeniable. What has been known on an intuitive level for a long time is now clearly proven in the scientific, psychological and medical research fields. Voluntary action can enable people to increase control over and improve their health. So not only does volunteering help the client, the agency, the community and society as a whole, but the decision to volunteer represents, for the volunteer, a choice of a healthy lifestyle.
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Barriers:
Attitudes
Myths
Ignorance
Low self-esteem, self image
Feel it’s a lifetime commitment
Stereotypes-cheap/free
Physical abilities
Seniors’ declining ability
Snowbirds Come and Go
Rigid rules and procedures
Seniors: "I’ve done my bit"
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Summary: Certainly this is not a complete list of barriers to volunteering. Taken together, the above comments on barriers go a long way toward rounding out an understanding of why more people don't volunteer. In particular, they suggest why some of the very people who might benefit the most from the self-esteem boosting, personally empowering, and health-promoting aspects of voluntary action remain uninvolved.
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How should volunteering be promoted?
The Human Touch! It needs to be advertised. It needs a high profile. The word 'volunteer' should be seen on a daily basis throughout all communities. Then when volunteering is promoted on a one-on-one basis, by word-of-mouth, it has been proven to be the most effective recruitment method. Through this word-of-mouth, there will already be an understanding and a receptive mind-set to ensure a positive response. So… we need ambassadors of volunteering who will then go out and draw people into the field and show them it's not something that's going to take over their lives, but rather add to their lives.
The message should come from someone to whom the prospective volunteer can relate. I think the best way that you're going to get a response is with actual people. You'll see something {poster} in the hall and you'll just kind of think about it. You don't actually follow through with it. It's a lot different when you can relate to something or understand it through experience.
Volunteer groups need education, promotion and support organizations-such as company and/or government sponsors.
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Here are some highlighted comments from the report:
• Survey: 52% enjoy doing something useful and helping others while another 32% enjoy volunteer work and feel needed.
•Volunteering provides an opportunity for involvement without the stress created by the expectations of a full-time job. It is therapeutic because it enables individuals to feel they have something valuable to offer.
• 93% of the 5.3 million Canadians said volunteering is "very" or "quite" important to them while only 1% said it was not important.
• In the relationship between volunteering and health, the concept of self-esteem may play a key role. It is suggested that the "high" that follows moderate exercise may result from "powerful psychological factors" -including heightened senses of self-esteem and self discipline. A similar "high" and a sense of heightened self-esteem has been shown to be a by-product of volunteering.
•If you are volunteering and you know people are relying on you, then it increases your sense of self-worth and it acts as an impetus to get up, get going, and get on with it.
•People have fun volunteering!
• And the best comment I found in all the research and review is "Volunteers are beautiful people"!
Volunteering is a big part of my life. It gives me a reason to get up. Instead of sitting at home and staring at the four walls and going crazy, I make myself useful by getting busy. Join me and other Bluebills in helping to make a difference!
- Merv Shetler, Bluebills Chairman
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| (Merv's information was exerpted from "Volunteer Ontario", a 1991 Canadian study) |
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