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I'd like to find a good fit for a volunteer gig in 2014. I've done volunteer jobs when younger but haven't had the ability in the last 10 years. I also have somewhat limited mobility, though it's much better now than a few years ago.
I'd like to hear not suggestions so much but actual experiences of retirees in these positions—how many hours a week do you do, what exactly you do "on the job", if you have any autonomy, how physically demanding it is, what kinds of prep work if any, what the rewards are for you. I'm hoping to hear a wide range of experience. Thanks ~
After completing 54 hours of training, which was very good and very interesting, I served for nearly 3 years as a Senior Peer Counselor. It took a few weeks for me to get a client, but once I got one, I worked with her for over 2 years, until she was ready not to have a counselor. I also had two shorter-term clients.
The program wasn't physically demanding, but it could be somewhat emotionally demanding, as being a good listener can be. I liked the training, I liked the camaraderie with the other counselors, and I liked the interactions with my client. My commitments were client meetings, written reports of those meetings (as proxy for my supervisor, a mandated reporter), and monthly training/supervision meetings.
I left at the end of the 3rd year, only because I was ready not to have any commitments for a while. My mom had a long illness and then died in year 3, and between that and my client, I felt I had taken care of others enough for a while.
I will go back when I am ready to make the commitment I feel is required.
NewEnglandGirl, I know you have read some of my previous posts on this subject, but your thread title makes a repetition completely on-topic. Part of this I copied and pasted from another thread in this Retirement Forum, the one about transitioning from workaholic to retiree, and I have added a little more to that.
I was recruited by a local school district to read aloud to classes as a volunteer. They were looking for people to go into kindergarten and first grade, but I protested that I had never dealt with such young children and said I would give fifth grade a try, thinking I would finish out the school year and give it up if I didn't like it. Well, I loved it and three and a half years later I am going strong, having expanded to a total of six fifth grade classes divided between two different schools. (The format is 30 minutes once a week for each class).
That activity probably seems too tame and routine for many people, but I have found there is actually a certain challenge in it, namely the challenge of finding the correct books which will challenge the kids but at the same time not be too far beyond them. The positive reaction of the students and teachers has been its own reward, and it is so enjoyable if one has a bit of the ham in him/her. Standing in front of a group, even if it's only 30 or 35 fifth graders, and holding that group in the palm of your hand is pretty neat.
Last week I had a boy approach me at lunch time asking to be told the outcome of an episode, explaining he was so curious and anxious to know. I told him he would just have to wait another half hour, at which time the whole class would find out!
I have added a chess club at lunch time (once per week) on the days that I am at each of the two schools. As I work individually with some of the students on chess, I find I get to know them a bit as individuals. The principals of the two schools seem to appreciate and value the chess club as well.
So there has been a progression of my time commitment, created by me, not forced upon me:
1. Eight years ago (upon retirement): One school - middle school chess club at lunch two days a week.
2. Three and a half years ago: Added reading aloud to one fifth grade class, but was able to time it so I was still only volunteering two days a week.
3. A little over a year ago, added one more elementary school at my initiative as I already knew the fifth grade teacher personally, and I loved the reading aloud.
4. Three months ago, added another middle school chess club at my initiative to follow the fifth graders from the school in #3.
I still have Mondays and Fridays "free". Outside prep is not extensive, but what I do of it is enjoyable - talk to people about books for the age level and read some based on recommendations.
An additional element which I have incorporated: My invitation to author Renata Zerner, now 87 years old, to address fifth grade classes after I read excerpts from her memoir about being a teenage girl in Nazi Germany. Her visits have been very well received, and her voice is a voice of history which we will not have with us forever. She loves to talk with young people. (Her family was anti-Nazi, and they had to go to extraordinary lengths to hide that fact from everybody else. They were not Jewish. So her voice is that of a witness to living in a police state.)
I have found my volunteer work in the schools immensely gratifying; that is the reason I took the initiative to expand my hours. I feel so fortunate to have fallen into this work.
Last edited by Escort Rider; 11-27-2013 at 06:26 PM..
I have nothing that impressive but for about a year I tutored new immigrants in English. There was an immigrant center that provided the training to (mostly retirees) us and then we were on our own with a one on one non English speaker. Students were able to get tutoring while they were on a waiting list to get into a class.
I had a man from the Caribbean, then a woman who was a refugee from somewhere in Africa, and the last one was a woman from China. It required some preparation, which I was used to from teaching school. I kept notes and used ideas from online and from the school's library of books for ESL to teach the lessons. I loved it but then I moved away.
Where I live now it's more rural and finding volunteer opportunities isn't so easy. All I do now--but it's fun--is to take my camera and photograph graves in the very old cemeteries. The online group is called Find A Grave and once you sign up and choose "your" cemeteries, requests will start coming into your mailbox. You can choose to claim it you think you can do it.
I started out with three cemeteries but it takes a lot of walking around to find the gravestones and the really old ones are hard to read. Finally I narrowed it down to the main burying ground in this town and that is now my specialty. This fall I met up with the head of the town's historical commission who was digging up--a gravestone! Many have sunk! So I photographed it and got it online.
Unfortunately this volunteer opportunity disappears under the ice and snow of a New England winter around here, but I may help out in the schools with units on early history of the town. Next spring I hope to learn how to clean and preserve the old stones and to fulfill more photo requests. It's rewarding. You get a nice email from a person all the way across the country who is a descendant of one of these early New Englanders, you get to know that you are preserving our heritage with your photographs and you are helping people to find their roots. You don't have to live in New England to do it either--just any place that has old cemeteries.
^^^^^ In_NewEngland, I think what you did and what you are doing is impressive. We should expect a wide variety of things to be reported as volunteer activities, and I'll bet not one person is going to say they rappel down a rope from a helicopter and save people who have fallen down a canyon!
What people will find gratifying is going to vary enormously. Many quiet activities make a genuine contribution.
I have really enjoyed doing food prep and then food service at a homeless shelter, but on the down side, it bothered me that the kitchen manager didn't care if the chicken was thoroughly cooked.
I had a similar experience prepping food at a church for homeless distribution - again, the food was sub-par and that bothered me.
I don't know what the solution to either of the two issues is (probably none) - the actual DOING of the jobs was pleasurable to me (especially serving the food - the people were so polite and grateful and joyful).
Mine since retirement haven't technically been volunteer positions but they might as well have been since they paid almost nothing beyond gas money.
I was an actor at a medical college training student doctors how to interact with patients. We would get a script with a scenario about our personal history and our medical conditions. It entailed some ad lib and the students would ask us questions such as had we traveled to a foreign country lately, about our family life, and other possibly pertinent things. It was absolutely hilarious as you almost felt they believed you were a prostitute with aids or were beaten by your husband or had dengue fever. It became clear very quickly who were the better students. After the initial interview by them we were able to counsel them as to questions we thought they had missed and so forth. It was a lot of fun.
My current is giving piano lessons to 4th graders in an after school program one day a week. I have a fascinating imaginative girl who wants to be a fiction writer and after the lesson she sits on the floor, or rather lies on it, and we talk for half an hour about all sorts of interesting things. Sometime I think she's studying me as a future character in one of her books.
Unfortunately this volunteer opportunity disappears under the ice and snow of a New England winter around here, but I may help out in the schools with units on early history of the town. Next spring I hope to learn how to clean and preserve the old stones and to fulfill more photo requests. It's rewarding. You get a nice email from a person all the way across the country who is a descendant of one of these early New Englanders, you get to know that you are preserving our heritage with your photographs and you are helping people to find their roots. You don't have to live in New England to do it either--just any place that has old cemeteries.
What an unusual and creative project. I envy those who have the patience for such detailed work. You should submit your story to CBS morning, they'd probably find it interesting.
Mine since retirement haven't technically been volunteer positions but they might as well have been since they paid almost nothing beyond gas money.
I was an actor at a medical college training student doctors how to interact with patients. We would get a script with a scenario about our personal history and our medical conditions. It entailed some ad lib and the students would ask us questions such as had we traveled to a foreign country lately, about our family life, and other possibly pertinent things. It was absolutely hilarious as you almost felt they believed you were a prostitute with aids or were beaten by your husband or had dengue fever. It became clear very quickly who were the better students. After the initial interview by them we were able to counsel them as to questions we thought they had missed and so forth. It was a lot of fun.
My current is giving piano lessons to 4th graders in an after school program one day a week. I have a fascinating imaginative girl who wants to be a fiction writer and after the lesson she sits on the floor, or rather lies on it, and we talk for half an hour about all sorts of interesting things. Sometime I think she's studying me as a future character in one of her books.
Sgoldie, what a riot. I love the medical scenario and can see a stage play being made from it. I wouldn't mind doing something like this myself, as I love giving people a hard time (I would play the belligerent patient) and could create quite a "scene," lol.
It's also fascinating about the piano lessons and the girl who has literary dreams.
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