Weekly Challenge: Volunteering in the Community
In the Unstoppable course, we have weekly challenges to keep us on our toes. This week’s challenge is to volunteer at least once in the community.
Why I Love Volunteering in the Community
When I was young, I was taught to volunteer where I could - whether it was unloading trucks and organizing goods for Market Day orders or working Lenten fish fries for my grade school or working on steel-framed houses and demolition sites with Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity during my high school years. In an effort to learn HTML and web development, I created a website on Geocities to promote Inward Bound - the teen program for Habitat for Humanity back in the mid-1990s. Early on, my parents instilled values in me with regards to gratitude and giving back to the community.
My purpose parallels my love for volunteering:
Make this world a better place by using my God-given talents to better serve the good of mankind.
I love volunteering because - in the end - I reap the rewards by seeing others’ gratitude and appreciation for the work that was put into whatever it was I had done. I’ve also been taught that it takes a village to raise a child - and that village is made up of people who were raised by their villages. So I firmly believe that giving back to the community is supporting the village that is raising the future generation.
My Current Volunteer Positions
Right now, I have a few volunteer efforts that I’m on:
- Helping plan and publicize the Cleveland location of the International Space Apps Challenge - happening April 22-24, 2016!
- Coordinating volunteers for Stir Trek - May 6
- Helping in various capacities on the project management and tech sides for Cleveland GiveCamp
- Offering guidance to a group planning a tech conference here in Cleveland
- Shepherding new user groups in the Cleveland and Akron tech communities
- Preparing for possibly 2 tech community events later this year in Akron
As these events happen, I look forward to reaping the rewards of living in an energized, passionate, thriving community and being proud of what they’re doing.
Impressive list. I love your reasoning behind volunteering. Two things i have discovered. First, our world is so much better off when everyone dedicates whatever they can in the service of others. Definitely does not need to be money, but we all have time / thoughts / ideas / smiles that we can share with others. Second, i still can’t fully define it, but when you are truly servicing others, you are put into a happier state of being.