Interestingness: Volunteerism
I've been "almost volunteering" for nearly 3 years now without every fully committing to a project(s).
I want to change that but my "almost commitment" has been linked to not attacking the key problem: I don't know where I want to volunteer.
In talking with Felicia today on our drive down to San Diego, I realized I needed to do some real work on this. Here's the start of that work.
The 5 issues most important to me:
- Poverty
- Environment
- Social Equality
- Senior Care
- Education/Mentoring
I'm actually pretty shocked by those last two but when I visit volunteer match, I'm drawn to those types of opportunities.
Anyway, my goal is to find the right opportunities and organizations that focus on these societal problems and focus on my community. I want to work for and with my neighbors.
I think I know my environmental group - I already donate monthly to Environment California but they are more of a policy advocacy organization than activity based so I'm looking seriously at Tree People for my volunteer service.
For poverty, I'm going to be a food pantry volunteer with SOVA in Van Nuys.
It's a start, anyway.
This gets the "interestingness" tag because it is part of an overall effort to add variety and value to my life outside of work and away from the computer. Interestingness.
Comments
Outside of those kind of efforts I really would like to volunteer with Grace to visit seniors and it's a major goal to volunteer with the Elephant Sanctuary sometime in the next couple years and I'm trying to incorporate some more direct advocacy into some of the photography projects I'm working on.
All of this isn't to say "look at me I'm doing good" but instead to say that even if you're not "Volunteering" in the traditional sense you are doing good and there are lots of additonal ways to do good and add more variety and value to your life.