Volunteering can be a rewarding experience, but do you know just how beneficial it can be not only for your community but for your health, your career, social relationships, and overall quality of life?
Life moves extremely fast for everyone these days. We live in a digital age where anything we could ever want is one click away. This fast-paced lifestyle can limit in person social interaction, hands-on experiences, decrease health of your mind and body and feelings of fulfillment in life. One of the best ways to unplug and disconnect from living life in the fast lane is volunteering your time and effort helping your community. You will gain so much more than volunteer hours.
Social Benefit
Volunteering helps connect you with new friends and contacts, and can help increase your social and relationship skills.
Health Benefits
Volunteering is also great for your mental and physical health. It can counteract stress, anger, and anxiety. It can combat depression, and make you happy by increasing self-confidence and providing a sense of purpose. It can help you stay physically active and it is important to remember that even with limited mobility you can still volunteer to help yourself and your community.
Career Benefits
Volunteering can also help advance your career by gaining new job skills and valuable experience. Some of the most valuable skills that you will gain while volunteering is compassion, positive attitude, open mind, and willingness to do whatever is needed.
Family Benefits
Volunteering can bring fun and fulfillment to your life, so get the entire family involved. Children watch everything going on around them and learn from those experiences. Teaching them how powerfully beneficial volunteering can be will help them grow as a person.
So how do you get started volunteering?
First, ask yourself if there is something specific you want to do.
For example, do I want…
…to make it better around where I live
…to meet people who are different from me
…to try something new
…to do something with my spare time
…to see a different way of life and new places
…to have a go at the type of work I might want to do as a full-time job
…to do more with my interests and hobbies
…to do something I’m good at
The best way to volunteer is to match your personality and interests. Having answers to these questions will help you narrow down your search.
Contact the Active SWV office to begin your role as a volunteer Community Captain; (304) 254-8488 [email protected].
Source: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-living/volunteering-and-its-surprising-benefits.htm
