by Abby Lumbard, HandsOn Battle Creek

April is National Volunteer Month, and this week is National Volunteer Week—two great reasons to get engaged in your community as a volunteer.  Our community needs volunteers to thrive. The beautiful thing about volunteering is that anyone can do it. Everybody is capable of giving a little bit of their time and talents towards a greater cause.

Whether it is through a service-learning opportunity organized within a classroom, celebrating a national day of service or participating in one of our many community engagement programs, volunteers are an essential piece of the vibrancy within our community.

Our community has hundreds of opportunities for people to get involved at varying levels. Many non-profit organizations not only welcome volunteers to support their missions, they rely on them. Each hour that a volunteer serves with an organization creates capacity for growth, expands their reach, and supports whichever cause they are working toward.

HandsOn Battle Creek plays an active role in recruiting and managing volunteers for community events and organizations throughout the year. We also strive to coordinate volunteer activities around the National Days of Service. Particularly, we recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day, National Volunteer Week, Global Youth Service Weekend, Make a Difference Day, and Family Volunteer Day. 

In 2013, HandsOn Battle Creek facilitated 756 connections between volunteers and volunteer opportunities listed through our website. The current value of a volunteer hour, as determined by the Independent Sector, is $22.14 – meaning if each of these 756 volunteers gave just one hour of their time, they would have given the equivalent of $16,737.84 to the community. 

That’s just through HandsOn. We know that many more volunteers have connected and engaged with local agencies and opportunities—through Volunteer Kalamazoo, for example.

When you think about those who create a sense of community, it’s the people who are involved and care about others.  Those are the types of people who can really make a difference and will help shape the future of the community. Those are the people who volunteer!

Abby Lumbard is Service Learning and Youth Program Manager for HandsOn Battle Creek. Find out more about this volunteer services arm of United Way at www.handsonbc.org.