Back To College Volunteering
Back To School Volunteers
Back to school or college is a constant rush to get to classes, go on field trips and do your laundry but college students can still find time to volunteer.
Why? Because books cannot give you the whole spectrum of this thing called life. You know how life works through people, warm-blooded human beings, not your five million followers on Google.
If you are out of town or from another country, volunteering in the community where you attend college will help you learn more about it.
Check out the free paper in your city or go online to see where organisations such as the United Way need volunteers. It is not all hard and miserable work. You can play chess once a week with a retired chess master.
Register Online For Volunteering
It’s cool to volunteer period. What is volunteering?
It is spending time doing something, somewhere, without being paid a yuan, yen, rupee, rand, dollar, pound, lira, one cent, or Nigerian kobo.
You volunteer because you like it. It makes you feel good. The person you helped gives you a smile and that makes your day.
You love sports so, you stood along the road and gave out bottles of water to people running a marathon in your town. Great day! The winners of the marathon are happy.
You smile when you see it on television and you can honestly tell your Facebook and Twitter friends that you were part of all that. Cool!
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Where Can I Volunteer?
Volunteering is not complicated. For example, there are two reactions when your car stalls in the middle of the road.
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Some drivers will curse you because of the delay.
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Others will park and help you push the car to the side of the road or the strip mall nearby.
I saw it four days ago from an office in a high building. That is micro-volunteering.
You can volunteer in something related to what you want to study in college or just volunteer to give people directions to the First Aid Tent during Canada Day, for example.
Being a volunteer allows you to meet real people in real work situations that are governed by certain rules and policies. That is the real world. We would like to do what we like, when we like, but the real world doesn’t work like that. Even if you have your own business, you still follow certain rules.
College Acceptance
There are millions of blogs about how volunteering might help you find a job. It is a possibility yes, but it doesn’t happen to everybody.
Being a volunteer will definitely help you with your college application. Colleges and universities no longer want just good grades. They want more.
There is something that some colleges call statement of goals. They want you to tell them something about yourself: what you are doing, where you see yourself in the future and what you are doing about it.
This statement often decides whether you get accepted to your favourite college or not. You can include all your volunteer work and explain why you do it. College authorities are looking for depth, for students with a vision for the future, not just for themselves, but for their communities as well.
Make volunteering part of your future game plan.
Pre-Registration
You cannot show up on Canada Day or 4th of July and say you want to help. There is pre-registration. The big Canada Day celebrations are in Ottawa, so you still have time to register if you live in that city or somewhere in Ontario. Your own province also has Canada Day events.
Registration is important because of logistics. Organisers need to know how many people can:
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provide first aid help (licensed first aid training)
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supervise kids in play areas
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work in information booths
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provide security
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be ushers at the main stage
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provide translation into French or English
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provide translation into other world languages.
Volunteer At Home
Charity begins at home. You and your friends can look around and see what is needed where you live, in your community and come up with ideas to fix it.
For example, you might be lucky to have a grandmother who wakes up every morning and goes to work. Maybe she even drives herself around. In other words, she lives an independent life.
How about other older people in your community? Will they be able to go to the local park to watch Canada Day or 4th of July fireworks?
You and your cousins and friends can rent special vans to take senior citizens with walking problems to the celebrations. Your mum or dad might have to drive because there are rules and regulations about bigger cars and certain passengers.
Non- Profit Organizations
Such organizations are also called non-governmental organisations (NGO’s). They tend to focus on one issue for example, consumer rights, legal rights, first-time voters, abused women, saving the environment, foster care etc.
Advocacy. That is what these organizations do. They advocate or speak on behalf of certain groups, or issues. Their work helps the government directly or indirectly. That is why in some countries, the government gives them some funding.
Special Interest Groups
You can also approach special interest groups like the marathon example we gave above. They always need volunteers, especially during the summer.
If you love cycling, you can go online and find upcoming cycling races. They might need volunteers for the registration table or for taking de-hydrated cyclists to the first aid tent.
Find your passion. Go online. Find relevant group where you can donate your skills or knowledge. Register as a volunteer and have fun.