What is "Meaningful Service"?

We all know that volunteering is a lot of fun. But when you start getting into the deeper meaning of why you volunteer, and what it means to you to be a volunteer, the awareness of your impact on the life of someone else can be astounding.

Everyone wants to feel good about themselves. When you go to a soup kitchen to dish out lunch for an afternoon or tutor a kid for an evening you can expect to walk away feeling pretty happy about how you just spent your time.

Yet, if you continued to do go back to the soup kitchen or tutor on a regular basis, would your level of happiness change from what it would have been if you only went once? Would you see a more profound change for the better if you invested more time?

These are questions we grapple with as volunteer coordinators and volunteer project planners. How can we help you connect with an organization, issue, or project that you find meaningful and worth your time?

We can't answer that question without defining what meaningful service is. Now, there really is no wrong answer. In the end it boils down to you feeling the work you do is significant and has a positive and important impact on the person, populations, or cause you are working with. It is sharing a part of yourself, either through a skill or passion, with another person for a mutual good.

As a volunteer coordinator, I strive to connect people who want to volunteer with opportunities that will have a lasting impression; opportunities that may not have been possible without the volunteer's help.

The beautiful thing about meaningful volunteering, is that it benefits both the volunteer and the person/cause/organization that the volunteer is supporting. Both parties learn and grow from the experience. A bond is formed and a sense of camaraderie or trust is established that develops into caring. It is the fact that we care for one another that gives us our support system. As humans, we are social creatures who generally thrive with support structures helping to motivate and look out for us. When someone volunteers, and continues to volunteer, they unlock a the potential for strengthening their support system and being invited into that of another person.

Loosely, that is how I define meaningful service. It is where I see the true power of volunteering lies.

-Jacqui De Cormier, AmeriCorps*VISTA