July
2006
The Corporation for National &
Community Service (the Corporation) recently released a report,
Volunteering in America: State Trends and Rankings 2002-2005, of their
research on volunteers in America and the volunteering experience. The
Corporation is a federal agency established in 1993 and strives to
engage Americans of all ages and backgrounds in voluntary service
opportunities to their communities and states. RSVP is one of many
initiatives that falls under their umbrella. The Corporation states this
report is a powerful new tool to assist organizations in developing a
strategy and setting goals to increase volunteering in their
organization and build the national service and volunteer infrastructure
in their states. (You can view this report by going to
www.nationalservice.org and clicking on Volunteering in America
under the “About Us” heading.)
I must admit I
did not read the full 146 page report, but I did go through the
executive summary and found it to be very interesting. Of course being
the true Texan I am, I was hoping that Texas volunteers stomped all over
the other states in their volunteering efforts. I was a little
disappointed; overall, Texas ranked in the low-middle section when
compared to the other states. However, because Texas is the second most
populated state, only behind California, we have the second largest
number of volunteers – in 2005 Texas had almost 4.8 million. I new I
would find bragging rights somewhere in the report if I kept looking.
Here are a few
of the Texas trends I found interesting.
-
A greater
percentage of persons aged 45-54 years volunteered than any other
age group. (The chart was divided into ten year age ranges, but when
it got to 65, they lumped the remainder of the population together
as 65+. Personally, I would like to have seen it continued to be
broken down in ten year segments.)
-
From
2003-2005 volunteers in Texas spent a median of 52 hours annually on
volunteer activities.
-
Almost 1/3
of all volunteers donated 100-499 hours annually and ¼ donated 15-49
hours annually.
-
The
greatest percentage of volunteers in Texas served primarily through
religious organization (38.9%)
-
After
religious organizations Texans donated most of their time to:
1. Education or youth service organizations (26%)
2. Social or community service (12%)
3. Hospitals or other health entities (7.1%)
4. Civic, political, professional or international causes (6.7%)
-
Almost 1/3
of volunteers in Texas coached, referred, tutored, taught or
mentored. The second most
popular volunteer activity in Texas was collecting, preparing,
distributing or serving food (28%).
I frequently
talk about how important and valuable volunteers are, but now I can put
a dollar figure on it. The Independent Sector, a non-profit coalition,
estimates the national average value for volunteering is equal to $18.04
per hour. That means in Texas from 2003-2005 the total value of our
almost 4.8 million volunteers’ time was $11,498,401,651. Talk about
things being big in Texas…that’s billions of dollars and that’s big.
Volunteers are big stars in Texas.
VOLUNTEER
OPPORTUNITIES:
Goodwill
Industries of Lubbock, Inc. needs three to five volunteers for the
Career Center receptionist position. The volunteer will sit at the desk
and greet the people who enter through the new wheelchair accessible
entrance, register the guest and give them a badge. Some very light
clerical work might also be involved, but no typing or telephone skills
are required. Goodwill needs the help Monday through Friday in the
mornings. Each volunteer could work one or two mornings a week.
Stork’s Nest
is a non-profit, cooperative national project of Zeta Phi Beta, Inc. and
the March of Dimes and seeks to improve the health of pregnant women and
their babies. They are seeking volunteers to operate the office during
the afternoons Monday through Friday and/or facilitate prenatal classes.
Training will be provided. An office volunteer does not have to
facilitate prenatal classes, nor does the volunteer facilitator of
prenatal classes have to volunteer in the office.
The ‘still new’
RSVP director, (yes that is me!) needs a computer literate
volunteer who understands Microsoft Publisher 2003 to help with the
quarterly newsletters and/or teach her how to use Publisher. I would
still be responsible for content. The RSVP newsletter goes out the first
of January, April, July and October; I work on them the month before
they go out.
To
volunteer, or for more information about these or other volunteer
positions, please call the RSVP office at 742-2423.
HOW do I join RSVP?
Becoming a member of RSVP is simple as long as you are at least 55 and have some time to volunteer. Just call the office at 742-2423 and chat with Ronda Casey or
Dana Bear about your interests. If you are not certain what you would like to do, we can mention several current volunteer opportunities and send you a list of the sort of jobs which RSVP members are presently doing to whet your appetite. If you have a special skill or talent that you would like to utilize, we will search to find just the right job for you. Just mail in the
enrollment form
(requires Adobe Reader) and we will call you!
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