By Crystal Kingwell
We’ve all heard the appeals for volunteers, people who can give even a couple hours of their time to help the community. But why would someone choose to work for free?
Maybe because the reward is worth more than money.
For the past year, Peter Cook has been a volunteer teaching furniture refinishing at the Good Day Workshop. The workshop is a non-profit program that teaches marketable skills to disadvantaged people. It operates entirely with volunteer help.
Cook, 56, retired two years ago and started teaching at the workshop on the advice of his cousin. Now he’s there five hours a day, four days a week.
“It offered me so much, an opportunity to give back to the community. And I receive a lot in return,” he says with a smile. “I wouldn’t give it up now for all the money in the world.”
Cook says he recently had an experience which made it all worthwhile. “One of the clients came to me who’s been here for almost a year and he thanked me for being here, helping him not only in woodworking, but just to be here to listen and to talk to. It was a real tear jerker.”
According to the Volunteer Centre of Ottawa-Carleton, four common reasons people volunteer are to help others, to assist a personal cause, to do something enjoyable and to gain a feeling of accomplishment.
Tony Hahn combines something he loves with a more pragmatic reason for volunteering: he wants a job. Hahn, 23, is a Carleton University student who does volunteer work for the Reform Party in Centretown.
“I’m in political science right now, in my fourth year, and truth be told, a B.A. in political science doesn’t get you much,” he says.
He volunteers because he loves it, but he also hopes the work he does will lead to career possibilities. “Gaining employment, I hope, will be a spinoff effect.”
Pat Bennett interviews potential volunteers at the Volunteer Centre and tries to match them with organizations looking for help. She has heard a wide range of reasons for volunteering: students want experience for their resumes, young mothers want to fill time after their children have started school, and new immigrants want to improve their English.
Bennett herself is a volunteer. “It was just something I felt I wanted to do. I wanted to give something back to the community. People are so appreciative when you give a little bit of your time. That makes it really wonderful.”
That sense of appreciation seems to be the number one reason for volunteering. Sister Margaret Sinnott, of the Grey Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, is a volunteer who co-ordinates welcoming services at the Bronson Centre. She arranges potluck lunches with various groups to make them feel like part of a wider community.
Like Cook, Sinnott says her goal is to be there for people who need to talk. “Very frequently I pass my day just walking around and talking to the different people. I may find myself just sitting with them and talking about some of their concerns.
“I like my life to be worthwhile, I like to do worthwhile things. When it amounts sometimes to where I can’t even say, well what did I do today,” she shrugs, “maybe I did this, and that’s okay.”
Perhaps the best reason for volunteering is a simple one, expressed by Cook: “I go home, I fall asleep at night, I feel good. You feel good about this. You really do.”
“Very frequently I pass my day just walking around and talking to the different people. I may find myself just sitting with them and talking about some of their concerns.
“I like my life to be worthwhile, I like to do worthwhile things. When it amounts sometimes to where I can’t even say, well what did I do today,” she shrugs, “maybe I did this, and that’s okay.”
Perhaps the best reason for volunteering is a simple one, expressed by Cook: “I go home, I fall asleep at night, I feel good. You feel good about this. You really do.”
FACTS ABOUT VOLUNTEERISM
– Over a 12 month period, five million Canadians volunteered, contributing over one billion hours. This is the equivalent of over half a million full-time, full year jobs.
– In 1994, 150,000 citizens of Ottawa-Carleton donated their time as volunteers.
– Volunteering initially increases with age, from a low of 20 per cent for youths aged 15 to 24 years to a peak of 37 per cent for 25 to 44 years old. It then declines with advancing age, to 20 per cent for persons aged 65 and over.
– A direct relationship exists between the participation rate of volunteers and their educational background. Forty-six per cent of those with a university degree do volunteer work, compared with 27 per cent of the overall population.- The likelihood of any one person volunteering rises with household income. Only 18 per cent of persons with household income under $10,000 volunteer, while 39 per cent of persons whose household income in $60,000 or more do so.
– More than 63% of all volunteers are married. There is a significant correlation between volunteerism and longer life and better health.
– Religious organizations, sports and recreation, and care and support organizations have the highest rates of volunteer involvement.
– Over half of Canadians do so for two or more organizations.
SOURCE: Volunteer Centre of Ottawa-Carleton