A Call for Volunteers
Greetings, I would like to kick things off with a hypothetical situation. What if you were able to wish for any one thing, and had the guarantee that it would come true? How many of you, by a show of hands, would sincerely use this wish on someone or something else that did not benefit you in any way? Not many as you can see. This is what I am here to talk to you about. Using your only wish to transform the lives others and still find contentment in that. As you have heard, I have worked with Open Arms health clinic for the past 5 years and in this time, I found that one of the greatest things about my job is that I get to work with many volunteers from diverse backgrounds. One of the volunteers in our clinic is an 84-year-old man. He started volunteering years before I was born. Other than his enthusiasm for volunteering, he also likes to tell jokes. And so, one day, he walks up to me and asks me, what do you call an elderly person who volunteers their time? I said, what do they call him? He smiled and said a dentured servant (opposite for indentured servants).
That aside, volunteering among many things is satisfying and fulfilling, and for some like my 84 years old buddy, it becomes an addiction. I can tell you that it is true from experience. However, volunteering is not just about the warm feeling. For instance, did you know that in 2017 alone, 64 million Americans, which is 25% of the entire adult population donated 8 billion hours of their time to volunteer work. The value of this time was approximately $25.43 per hour translating to USD 184 billion in economic impact (Patterson, 2018). This is displayed in the image shown. Through volunteer work, communities can be transformed and individuals impacted, in terms of boosting the volunteers’ self-concept, confidence, and giving them a sense of self-accomplishment. For the communities where social programs and affordable services are limited, volunteer work enables easy access to these service s . I am here to talk to you today about volunteering and how this will help you grow as an individual, and how the community will be transformed beginning with the lives you touch.
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Figure 1 : Value of volunteerism. Source: Independent Sector report (2019)
Volunteering in the healthcare sector is low, compared to other fields such as education and faith-based volunteering. This is mainly because community health volunteers require special training to perform their duties effectively, particularly when the life of another person is at stake. Volunteers may have issues with role, work, assigned, coordination, and achieving the desired quality of patient safety and care. This notion is fallacious and should not be used as a basis for deciding on the area of volunteering. The healthcare sector is in dire need of community health volunteers, who are likely to help improve the accessibility of clinical services to people particularly the vulnerable ones. To overcome the challenge of shortage of community health volunteers, we need more volunteers. Now, the question is, where do you as a high school student fit in all this?
I was made aware that, all of you are members of the influential Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA). This means that not long from now, you will all be health care professionals working in various healthcare fields as doctors, nurses, surgeons, medical tutors, and so on. I think it is safe to assume that all of you here have an innate desire to help, to do good, and in the act make the world a better place. Now, how can volunteering bring you closer to your dream career as a medical professional? What other benefits you are likely to get as a volunteer? What impacts volunteering will have on the community and our organization?
First, volunteering with us will give you a firsthand opportunity to learn about the healthcare field. You will have a front-row seat to the show and see what goes on in a real hospital setting. You will see how the various parts work together as a unit towards the achievement of a specific goal such as improved patient safety and outcomes. You will learn all about the processes and procedures that are followed in the hospital by various staff, the protocols that are followed in case of an event, and what happens to patients from the time they are brought in to discharge. With this information, you can be able to decide whether medicine is the career you want to pursue or not. Second, volunteers will have an opportunity to tail physicians as they make their rounds. In certain special cases, you may be allowed to participate in a patient examination which gives you an edge over other medic aspirants who have not had such experience. Can you think of any more ways you can benefit from hands on experience in a real hospital setting?
Third, having a doctor you can shadow and learn from is a ripe opportunity to form networks and bolster your career profile. As you continue to pursue your ambitions, you will increasingly realize that having strong strategic networks could position you for greater achievements. One is able to hone their skills as one continues to grow. In other words, you tend to get back more than you give when you volunteer. Fourth, researchers have associated volunteering with positive physical and mental health outcomes such as the reduction in body weight, increased stamina and memory flexibility for volunteers in senescence, decreased depression, and finding purpose and happiness (Smith et al., 2010). When adjusted for age, gender, and social-economic status, it was found that volunteers generally live longer. Lastly, volunteering with us will not hurt your chances of gaining college admission to a prestigious pre-med and medical school, and consequent career development
Figure 2 : reasons why people volunteer. Source: (Horoszowski, 2013)
As a non-profit dedicated to helping vulnerable members of the community, the funding and resources donated to us may not be enough to cover the growing health care cost. Having volunteers enables the organization to save on costs and divert those resources to other urgencies. We get to make a difference every day. When we have volunteers, the capacity to impact individual lives also increases. We are able to provide a wide range of services to communities in dire situations with lesser effort. Finally, having volunteers on board reduced the cost of healthcare burden on the community as it enables us to offer quality healthcare services to those who cannot afford these services.
I believe that we all want to see change and transformation in the American healthcare system. Despite having several thousand non-profit organizations, advanced technologies, growth of capital markets, and many other signs of progress, we can agree that this change still seems like a distant star. So what can you do to change the world? I feel that if you have a yearning to do something meaningful or get somewhere you aspire to be, then there is no better platform to actualize this than volunteering. The importance of volunteering cannot be overstated. Some high schools have stipulated a specific number of volunteer hours in order to graduate students. Colleges openly recognize the value of volunteering making it an essential part of a student’s resume in a college application (Handy et al., 2010). 1 in every two high school students has participated in some form of community service before. What if we could maintain and sustain this trend in the years to come? Visualize what it could mean for the world if almost everyone was volunteering to meet a need in one area or the other. If the vision appeals to you, then join the Open Arms Health Clinic for a chance to make a real difference.
References
Handy, F., et al. (2010). A cross-cultural examination of student volunteering: Is it all about résumé building?. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly , 39 (3), 498-523.
Horoszowski, M. (2013). 9 facts most people don’t know about international volunteering. Retrieved March 19th 2021 from https://blog.movingworlds.org/9-facts-about-international-volunteering/
Indipendent Sector. (2019). Independent sector releases new value of volunteer time of $25.43 per hour. Retrieved March 19th 2021 from https://independentsector.org/news-post/new-value-volunteer-time-2019/ .
Patterson, T. (2018). Stats reveal how many Americans volunteer and where. CNN news. Retrieved March 18, 2021 from https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/19/us/volunteering-statistics-cfc/index.html .
Smith, K., et al. (2010). Motivations and benefits of student volunteering: comparing regular, occasional, and non-volunteers in five countries. Canadian Journal of Nonprofit and Social Economy Research , 1 (1).
