AS ALWAYS, DR. SEUSS said it best: “Oh, the places you’ll go and the people you’ll meet.”
In making this statement, the good doctor could have been talking about the benefits of volunteering. Since inheriting some money in 2011, I haven’t had to work multiple jobs, as I did in graduate school and during the three years that followed. From 2012 on, I’ve had mostly full-time work, leaving me with time to volunteer for causes I care about. My contention: Volunteering is one of the most meaningful activities you can undertake—and you shouldn’t wait until retirement to give it a try.
I’ve been fortunate to have had a robust portfolio of volunteer positions that has complemented my academic career. This portfolio has expanded my skill set, and allowed me to meet and—in many cases—help people I’d never have otherwise encountered. Most important, my volunteer experiences helped me to connect with dormant parts of myself.
When I lived in Minnesota, I invested time at the Basilica of St. Mary’s employment ministry. Every week, I met with people who had experienced first-hand the career destruction of the Great Recession. I helped folks with mock interviews, cover letters and resumes. I worked with probably 100 clients, from convicted felons to cashiered C-suite types. Everyone was slightly desperate, and I tried to impart both skills and hope.
When I took a job at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida, I volunteered with the employment ministry there. I gave presentations on resumes, and I worked one-on-one with clients. One of the most interesting people I helped was a graphic designer for the Orlando Sentinel. Axed during corporate downsizing, he’d learned the hard way that being part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team doesn’t guarantee employment.
While I lived in Orlando, I also decided to deepen my commitment to human rights—which I’d first developed in high school—by serving as a volunteer for, and the secretary of, Amnesty International Chapter 519. Every year, I participated in our annual Write for Rights event, during which we wrote letters to heads of state on behalf of prisoners of conscience.
On a more controversial note, I helped to coordinate our “birthday cards to death row inmates” project. To show that we saw these people as human beings, no matter what they’d done, we sent cards to everybody on Florida’s death row. For our efforts, our group won an award from Amnesty International.
Amnesty also gave me another special opportunity: to intervene with the warden of Florida State Prison on behalf of a hunger striker. Our group had been asked to send an email to prison authorities. I did so, and—much to my amazement—the warden responded. He and I exchanged emails about a prisoner who claimed he was being beaten. I framed the “thank you” letter the prisoner sent me, and still have it.
Finally, Amnesty gave me the opportunity to receive lobbying training. Eventually, both on my own and with a group, I visited the offices of U.S. House and Senate members. Usually, we were met by aides, but at one meeting in Pittsburgh—I spent eight months there after leaving Florida—Congressman Mike Doyle emerged from his office. He brought us into a meeting room and spent 30 minutes talking with us.
Also during my time in Florida, I had the opportunity to work on some political campaigns. While I received a small stipend, I basically count canvassing as volunteer work. In summer 2015, I knocked on doors in Orlando’s sweltering heat for a voter-registration project.
One evening, I walked up to a house in East Orlando. On the mailbox was the name “Johnny Thunder.” I had no idea who this was. I knocked on the door, and an 80-year-old man answered. I said, “Are you Johnny Thunder?” He smiled and said he was.
Johnny Thunder is the stage name of R&B singer Gil Hamilton, who in 1963 had a hit song, Loop de Loop. Hamilton went on to tell me that the song had allowed him to buy a house. After his 15 minutes of fame, during which none other than Bob Dylan cited the brilliance of his work, Johnny Thunder had worked on cruise ships sailing out of Port Canaveral.
I’ve felt proud to help people try to reenter the workforce, and I’ve felt honored to recognize the humanity of prisoners and political protestors. But there’s been one volunteer opportunity that has allowed me to help a special group of people, with whom I share something in common.
For the past 10 years, I’ve served as an alumni admissions interviewer for my undergraduate alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. For the past five years, I’ve interviewed students who are applying to Penn under the auspices of Penn First and Questbridge.
These programs offer talented students from the lower-middle class a shot at the Ivy League and a different kind of life. Originally from the lower-middle class myself, I always wonder, when one of my interviewees is accepted, whether I might have played a tiny role in launching another Elon Musk, Candace Bergen or Noam Chomsky.
From death row to the Ivy League, volunteering can take you to some interesting places, and allow you to meet and help a wide range of people. And, who knows, if you’re really lucky, you might even get to do the Loop de Loop.
Douglas W. Texter is an associate professor of English at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas. Doug teaches a composition I course that focuses on personal finance. His essays and fiction have appeared in venues such as the Chronicle of Higher Education, Utopian Studies, New English Review and The Writers of the Future Anthology. Check out Doug’s previous articles.
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I’m currently helping a friend at her cow ranch as she is gone.
A lot of physical exercise is involved. Two keep getting out of the corral…but I found the hole and fixed it!
It’s like a working vacation, away from the city.
We don’t need some organized enterprise to volunteer.
I missed out on volunteering while working a long hours job, except for some church gigs, but jumped in after I retired. I read with two boys at our local elementary school once a week each, volunteer at a local hospital every Wednesday afternoon, and we watch our three-year-old twin granddaughters every Monday. We also play Nine Square on Friday mornings at the Senior Center and I hit the gym three times a week. And I kept the church gig.
Then I receive a questionnaire from Medicare asking if I am depressed! Seriously? This is the best time of my life! Stay busy.
I volunteer at a local Habitat for Humanity Restore operation. Just once a week, 4-5 hours. The store sells donated plumbing and construction materials, furniture, etc. The funds generated at Restore help to finance local home building projects. It’s fun, keeps me active, plus I get to scout for treasures at a low cost for my own home improvement projects! I also participate in Habitat’s home construction projects each summer.
I’m not sure if you would consider this ‘volunteering’ or not … but after working more than 25 years or so in the high-pressure high-remuneration financial services industry … I took a much lower-paying, lower-stress level job at a not-for-profit.
I felt that, along with regular charitable donations to food pantries and homeless shelters, was my giving back to the community.
After fully retiring I’ve been doing some behind-the-scenes “work” at our Church.
Your post is a breath of fresh air, thank you!