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Volunteering
By Sara Parent
Job position: Anything you
want; you choose where you want to work.
Job description: Doing something you enjoy
Hours: flexible. You come in when you have the time.
Pay: none |
At first glance, the first three sound good.
But wait, all that work and no pay? What's so great about that?
Well, volunteering is a great way to go. Of course, you can't live off
it, and you need to have some free time available to donate. But the great thing about
volunteering is its often unnoticed benefits.
The greatest benefit is the chance to learn new skills, meet new people, and contribute
something to your community. It needn't be a lot of time, once a week, twice a month,
every other Saturday. You get to choose how much time you can afford, and how often you
can attend activities and meetings.
The ability to choose where you want to volunteer is another benefit. Community groups of
various types often look for people to offer their expertise. You can choose among
hundreds of different fields, from environmental management to healthcare, to working with
animals. Even if you don't have any industry-specific skills, anyone can stuff envelopes,
cheer up sick or elderly patients, or clean up a park.
An often unforeseen benefit of volunteering is the possibility of employment. Those you
meet through volunteering can often put you in touch with people or companies that are
short-staffed. They know how hard you work because they see you every day. Who better to
recommend you to others? And some day the place where you volunteer may get additional
funding and ask you to stay on full-time. If you are enjoying your volunteer work, and it
shows, they may prefer to offer you the job, rather than have to find and train another
person.
If you don't get a job out of it, that's okay too. You are expanding your horizons,
meeting new people and learning new skills, all while helping out your community. It looks
great on a resume, and makes you feel great too.
The easiest thing to do is pick out a group you would like to help and call them up. You
may end up helping yourself as much as you help them.
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