Experience with Volunteer Work / How to get started?

chicago · Dec 22, 2018

I'm out of my 9-5 due to mental health issues. Looking to focus hard on how to get myself out of this funk. I donated a bunch of clothes the other day and it did wonders for my self esteem, but I think i'd rather do something maybe once or twice a week (committing to things right now is one part difficult and one part probably important to have a routine).

Have you or do you volunteer regularly? What have done or do you do now with your volunteer work? What advice would you give someone interested in doing so? How does one find more information or places that need volunteers?

Thank you for any responses.

Comfort Eagle · Dec 22, 2018

Not 100% this is universal across all of them, but a hospital I work at uses volunteers to help escort elderly or impaired patients across the facility. Low stress, helpful, and at least the place I work at uses anybody from teenagers other elderly people. See if your local hospital has something similar?

chicago · Dec 22, 2018

Comfort Eagle said:
Not 100% this is universal across all of them, but a hospital I work at uses volunteers to help escort elderly or impaired patients across the facility. Low stress, helpful, and at least the place I work at uses anybody from teenagers other elderly people. See if your local hospital has something similar?

Awesome! This is great info! Not sure what I want to do exactly, I just would like to be around people and feel like I'm doing something, however small.

Thank you so much, Eagle

Mitchell · Dec 22, 2018

Chicago, believe it or not, even though I know you don't think highly of me at times.

You and I are in a bit of the same boat.

Right now, my father and my therapist do not think I should be in the 9 to 5 realm due to my seizures and mental health issues.

They have advised me to do volunteer work.

From what I've been told, and what I've researched so far.

Try to find a religious organization/maybe a church, temple, homeless shelter etc.

I don't know how it is in Arizona..

In NYC, there are websites where you can sign up with your e-mail, and they will actually send you volunteer opportunities within a very local radius of you. At places like political organizations/homeless shelters/community affairs organizations, etc etc. I've done this, and receive regular e-mails about such.

I hope that such advice is helpful to you.

I wish you luck in finding the volunteer opportunity you seek.

chicago · Dec 22, 2018

Thanks Mitch! I hope you find something too and please tell us here if you do! I'd like to hear about it

Mitchell · Dec 22, 2018

You're welcome, Chicago. I'm glad I could be of help.

I will most certainly let people know what I find.

DEV · Dec 22, 2018

Charity shops are a good place for this. I've volunteered at a local Oxfam for years and you can get into it well, helping sort out the donations for sale or just being on the desk. Nice, easy work and you get to meet a fair number of people as well.

EmbraceSerenity · Dec 22, 2018

I was about to suggest charity shops too. Lots of different responsibilities within it, serving customers as well as doing stock. When I was at uni I worked at a day centre for the elderly - it required helping them get about, playing board games with them and making them drinks. Volunteering is a fantastic thing and I always urge people to do it. If you like children there are often special schools or children homes that could always use volunteers.

Bugman · Dec 22, 2018

Animal shelters can usually use a helping hand, and working with critters can be very therapeutic. Don't know what your situation is but Meals on Wheels is something to think about, or a local food bank.

Nedstacey2 · Dec 23, 2018

Comfort Eagle said:
Not 100% this is universal across all of them, but a hospital I work at uses volunteers to help escort elderly or impaired patients across the facility. Low stress, helpful, and at least the place I work at uses anybody from teenagers other elderly people.

EmbraceSerenity said:
When I was at uni I worked at a day centre for the elderly - it required helping them get about, playing board games with them and making them drinks.

Agreed, my mom recently started living in a nursing home, and one of the things I've come to learn about this new environment is the vital role volunteers play there. Chronic understaffing is frequently an issue in such facilities, and many of the residents can't do much for themselves anymore and often don't get enough visits from family and friends. For helping out in various ways even if just pushing people around in wheelchairs as @Comfort Eagle and @EmbraceSerentiy here allude to and above all for simply alleviating residents' loneliness to any extent, volunteers there are very much appreciated and shown so, and that boost to your sense of self-worth can't help but enhance your own mental health.

Experience with Volunteer Work / How to get started?

chicago

Guest

Comfort Eagle

Level of Cherry Feather

chicago

Guest

Mitchell

Level of Coral Feather

chicago

Guest

Mitchell

Level of Coral Feather

DEV

3rd Level Red Feather

EmbraceSerenity

TMF Expert

Bugman

Verified

Nedstacey2

TMF Expert