Helen Moore Shirley Lew Rana Shaskin Richmond Public Library

A good year to volunteer

Now that the season of giving is officially over, consider doing something entirely selfish and volunteer! Sound like a contradiction? Not according to recent studies and trends. Giving our most precious possession we have – our time - can boost your health, self-esteem, enrich your social life and introduce you to a whole network of communities. So go ahead and indulge yourself!

Before you let your enthusiasm get ahead of you, take some time to find a volunteer position that best suits you. The Web, with its wealth of information on volunteering, affords us the ability to be selective about who benefits from our skills and time.

As much as we’d all like to change the world, probably a more reasonable place to start is in your own backyard. Richmond Connections www.vcn.bc.ca/rcs/ and Volunteer Vancouver www.vancouver.volunteer.ca/ are local organizations dedicated to matching people and skills to organizations that need them. For a list of volunteer centers across BC, check out the directory on Volunteer BC’s Web site www.volunteerbc.bc.ca/bc_volcentres.html.

If you still have energy to spare, Volunteer Opportunities Exchange www.voe-reb.org/ is a volunteer match-making service that covers all of Canada. This service truly capitalizes on the power and immediacy of the Internet. Volunteers submit an online profile which are matched against the profiles requested by organizations, all in real-time. Its parent organization, Volunteer Canada www.volunteer.ca/, is also worth a visit for general information.

The fact that volunteerism among youth has almost doubled in the past few years, it is no surprise that there are several web sites devoted to the 15 to 24 year olds among us. Richmond Connections Generation Leadership www.vcn.bc.ca/rcs/gen-lead.html has a Web site about a program to help youth develop their leadership and community skills. Youth Volunteer Corps of Canada www.yvcc.ca/ and Youth Resources Network of Canada www.youth.gc.ca/jobopps/volunt_e.shtml both outline the benefits and opportunities for the volunteering youth.

Still need some inspiration? It might help to know that people all over the world are, like us, either thinking about or are already enjoying the rewards of volunteering their time and skills. The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2001 as the International Year of Volunteers www.iyv2001.org/. Canada’s Web site www.iyvcanada.org/ to mark the occasion is worth visiting just for the stories and experiences it has posted from volunteers across Canada.

One thing is clear, volunteering has definitely come a long way from stuffing envelopes and licking stamps.