A Guide to Identifying Volunteer Opportunities
Ah, the sixties. When men were men and women were women and volunteerism was practically a rite of passage. True, some interpreted volunteerism as the act of voluntarily boarding a jet liner to Europe to celebrate their recent graduation from college or their newly acquired drop-out status and others simply interpreted the concept to mean the ability to voluntarily cross the border from the US to Canada.
But there were some, with more honorable intent, who donned their red, white, and blue bell bottoms and jumped body and soul into the Peace Corps. But today, a willing spirit can participate in a myriad of opportunities to both help mankind and reap the spiritual rewards of giving back before they give in (as do all good democrats eventually) to corporate greed and corruption.
Why bother fighting hunger, disease, poverty, and the lack of opportunity on the streets of Manhattan or Wall Street. Instead, why not enjoy your national forests as a volunteer and spend your days hosting campgrounds and clearing the trails with Smokey the Bear? If given the option, would you really rather waste your time playing pattie cakes with the gorillas in an office when you could instead join Global Vision International to establish community wildlife reserves that protect great apes from the threats to their survival? If provided the alternative, would you actually choose to spend your time transplanting and nurturing three measly tomato plants on a cement balcony in an air polluted city instead of spending your days scuba diving and helping to restore and preserve coral reefs by creating marine sanctuaries? And, who would want to hang around an office waiting to snag that next 2009 economic downturn 0% raise when they could spend their days in meditation as they band birds at a national wildlife refuge, raise fish at a national fish hatchery or conduct a wildlife survey?
If I have been even mildly convincing in my efforts to encourage each of you to take the leap and live an extraordinary adventure, Volunteermatch.org and Volunteer.gov/gov are great places to begin your efforts to identify a volunteer opportunity that will quite literally expand your horizons. If you prefer to evaluate volunteering options that entail international travel then Volunteerabraod.com or Worldvolunteerweb.org will be your cup of tea.
Each web site provides you the option to enter the criteria that are important to you in the volunteer opportunity selection process. For example, Volunteer.gov/gov allows you to an opportunity to view volunteer opportunities that are associated with a particular government agency. Using this web site, you simply enter the agency you would like to support, the state in which you would like to work, the type of opportunity in which you want to participate, as well as the time period in which you are available in order in order to identify the best opportunities that meet your personal requirements. Using this web site you can identify opportunities to work with the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Land Management, the US Geological Survey, the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and more.
In contrast, Volunteermatch.org web site presents the user the option to enter a geographical location and a key word that represents their particular area of interest as a basis to select particular volunteer opportunities that will best suit their needs. Like Volunteermatch.org, the international web sites allow the user to begin their search for the perfect opportunity on the basis of geographical location and by area of interest.
Regardless of the preferred geographical location or the opportunity selected, volunteering provides you a great opportunity to go around more than once in this world and to give back each and every step of the way. The world awaits you.
