Benefits of volunteering
A volunteer reminisces
LARRY BAILLIE VOLUNTEER STAFF
With the holiday season upon us, many religions have celebrations this time of year. For me, it is Christmas and at that this time, I am reminded about the gift of giving through volunteering. A volunteer can bring so much hope and joy to people who do sometimes find it a challenge just to get up in the morning.
For most people attending university, it is a time of learning, self-reflection, discovery, and did I forget parties. With our busy schedules, it is hard to imagine how we can give time when we have very little time to give. Just like the predicament that I am in right now where I have to study for exams and write papers, when the phone rings and my editor asks me to volunteer and write one last article for the year.
The experience that you gain being a volunteer will not only help you looking for employment, since many employers like to hire people who are community-oriented. Volunteering allows exposure to the environment that you want employment in when you graduate, allowing other people to see your abilities.
Volunteering has allowed me to help individuals and my community at the micro, macro, and mezzo level. Whether it is writing articles for the Manitoban, or working at a planning and organizing level of an association or dressing up as a mascot, it is volunteering.
For a moment, just imagine meeting and shaking hands with royalty, watching the world Junior gold medal game between Canada and Russia, meeting Ian Miller just moments before he carried the flag for Canada in the closing ceremonies of the Pan Am games, standing 50 feet from the Guess Who’s first performance in 20 years. I even had my artwork sent to more than a million homes in Canada because I volunteered my time to paint and donate it to a charity.
The last event that I volunteered at was the 2006 Grey Cup game. My day started at 7 a.m. by making sandwiches for over 1,500 volunteers, then switched to accrediting most of those volunteers and finally to putting on a backpack and selling beer in the stands. Yes that is right, 150 pounds of ice-cold beer strapped to my back at one of the biggest parties of the year, to most students that would be a dream. What a great way to be the hit of a party. Halfway through the first quarter of the game, I had to stop and ask myself how volunteering could be so much fun. If you were on the east side in the stands that was me joking with the fans, dancing to the music and singing musical hits such as “99 cans of beer in the wall.” At the start of the game the backpack kept the beer cold and in the second half it kept the beer from freezing. The highlight of my day is when a person who had just bought a beer proclaimed to me that I would get the most unique tip I have ever received. At that point he reached into his pocket and pulled out a vacuum-packed piece of kubasa (sausage) to celebrate the Koobie Kids 25th-straight Grey Cup (he even had a coupon attached to the package). At the start of the fourth quarter I was leaving the stands feeling very tired when I started to hear a chant and as I got closer I realized that a large group of fans were chanting “way to go beer guy, way to go.” That was a very memorable way to end a day of volunteering. What I forgot to mention is by volunteering that day, a person got money for a transplant, a group of brain injury survivors will not celebrate Christmas alone — and these are just a couple of examples of the groups that benefited from volunteering during the Grey Cup game. At this time of year, when we think about giving, my suggestion is to think of the lives you can change just by volunteering.
Volunteering is not only helpful to other individuals and communities; it is helpful, beneficial, and rewarding for you. Yes, you can make a change!
Larry Baillie is a social work student at the University of Manitoba.
