Volunteering offers more than just lending a helping hand. It’s a path to personal growth and community impact. Looking for a reason to volunteer? Here are some “whys”.
1. Volunteering is good for both your physical and mental health.
Studies have shown that volunteering may reduce stress and risk of disease. By savoring time spent in service to others, you will feel a sense of both giving and receiving appreciation and purpose! According to the Mayo Clinic, “Volunteers report better physical health than nonvolunteers. Research also has shown that volunteering leads to lower rates of depression and anxiety, especially for people 65 and older.”
2. It is a great opportunity to network and make new friends.
Volunteers keep afloat the organizations that are doing the hard, but good work of meeting our community’s needs. There are so many areas that you can plug into, such as: spending time with seniors (FiftyForward), tutoring or mentoring a child in school (Raise Your Hand), providing meals to people in need (St. Luke’s Community House), cleaning up a park (Mill Ridge Park). If you are passionate about the work you are doing, you are going to make like-minded friends!
3. Your community needs you.
Volunteers keep the organizations that are doing the hard, but good work of meeting our peoples’ needs afloat. A lot of times organizations have limited personnel, a demanding workload and a lack of money or resources to hire staff to support the work. According to The Independent Sector, for Tennessee in 2022, each hour of volunteer service saved a nonprofit $28.12, per volunteer. So, putting that into perspective: if 75 volunteers serve 16 hours of their time to their choice of community focused nonprofits, that’s the equivalent of donating $33,744 to organizations that really needed the help.
Are you interested in volunteering? Make a difference in your community by checking out Hands On, where you’ll find hundreds of ways to volunteer with more than 200 nonprofits or community organizations looking for help.