Volunteer Opportunities

The power of the “Woodstock Nation” lies dormant, a sleeping giant that can still change the world.

Seventy-eight million strong we are the healthiest, wealthiest, and best educated generation ever to reach retirement age.

If we’re lucky we can expect to be around for some thirty plus years.

We have not lost our altruism or desire to make a difference.

Now, with the gift of time, the wisdom of experience and a little old fashioned flower power, we can.

Volunteer opportunities abound in every community. Whether you prefer working directly with people or behind the scenes in administration, many organizations need your help. You don’t have to look any further than your local hospital or school to find interesting volunteer work. Hospital volunteers work as friendly visitors, nurses’ aids and recreation leaders. They bring library carts to patients’ bedsides, work in the gift shop or assist in clerical duties. School volunteers work as teachers’ assistants, tutors, playground attendants and clerical aids.

Religious organizations have highly organized volunteer programs to meet the needs of their communities, including assistance to children, the homeless and the homebound. Social Service Agencies welcome volunteer assistance with such programs as job development, drug and alcohol abuse, crisis intervention, battered women, pre school care and assistance for disabled people.

If you are politically minded, consider working for a political party or candidate. You may become involved in voter registration, special-interest lobbies, or consumer-advocacy. If you are concerned about environmental issues, activist organizations, parks, zoos and community gardens; all welcome volunteers. If culture is your thing, dance and theater companies, museums, orchestras and libraries rely on volunteers for ushers, guides, fundraising and public relations.

You need not limit yourself to organized volunteer opportunities. Invent your own job. On a trip to Port Au Prince, Haiti, Larry and Frances Jones were struck by the poverty they witnessed and wondered why children starve while America’s storage elevators overflow with grain. This simple observation and the commitment to do something about it, led the Jones’s to establish Feed The Children the third largest charity in the United States. From its humble beginnings in their kitchen in 1979, Feed the Children now helps feed the hungry all over the world.

Volunteer opportunities come in all forms and sizes, from large Federal Programs to those of your own making. Whether you want to use your professional skills to give back Save the World, mentor a child, or go on a volunteer vacation there are volunteer opportunities or you.