Did Covid disrupt the parent volunteer pipeline

[Anonymous]

A lot of off season HS activities (tournaments , offseason leagues, etc) have lower participation than in the past. A theory was floated (not mine but I thought it was interesting) that these activities require parent volunteers with lots of initiative to step up. That volunteer pipeline was disrupted with Covid / so the next generation of volunteers never had the chance to see want a parent volunteer could do for their kids’ team.

I was wondering if anyone else was noticing a decline in parents volunteering and if so what could be done to reverse it.

[Anonymous]

Well, covid school closures definitely made me never ever want to volunteer at school unless it was something to directly benefit my kid like chaperoning a field trip. Maybe this trickled to other activities.

[Anonymous]

I feel like covid helped many of us realize what things we missed and what things we didn't. Those kind of off season things don't add value for my family, they just add pressure and business and reduce family time. So, I'm not going to volunteer to make them happen.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I’m involved in several youth activities, and have significant volunteer fall off post COVID.

I think pp is right: families are prioritizing their time differently after returning to the office. They want their kids to do sports and scouts and community theater and PTA enrichment activities, but they don’t have the volunteer hours to commit to it.

This leads to incredible burnout among the parents who ARE volunteering, so we lose them too.

OP’s point about not seeing the previous “generation” of parent volunteers is interesting too, but I’m seeing it for parents of kids both older and younger than my kids (who were in K/2nd when COVID hit).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like covid helped many of us realize what things we missed and what things we didn't. Those kind of off season things don't add value for my family, they just add pressure and business and reduce family time. So, I'm not going to volunteer to make them happen.

But do you still put your kids in activities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like covid helped many of us realize what things we missed and what things we didn't. Those kind of off season things don't add value for my family, they just add pressure and business and reduce family time. So, I'm not going to volunteer to make them happen.

What does "family time" even mean?

I would rather that DH and I are supporting my kids and their team on the weekends, rather than doing domestic chores on the weekend.

Eating dinner, watching TV, going to the movies, shopping, visiting relatives etc, happen as usual anyways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I’m involved in several youth activities, and have significant volunteer fall off post COVID.

I think pp is right: families are prioritizing their time differently after returning to the office. They want their kids to do sports and scouts and community theater and PTA enrichment activities, but they don’t have the volunteer hours to commit to it.

This leads to incredible burnout among the parents who ARE volunteering, so we lose them too.

OP’s point about not seeing the previous “generation” of parent volunteers is interesting too, but I’m seeing it for parents of kids both older and younger than my kids (who were in K/2nd when COVID hit).

ITA that Covid has removed incentive to volunteer and I also agree that the return-to-office has an impact. Sports practice times seemed to move earlier during Covid and now that people are back in the office they can't make those early times. Meanwhile organizations haven't adjusted to accomodate WOH volunteers.

I also think there's been a generational shift where people, starting around the Elder Millennials, don't really want to volunteer. See the whole Venmo Mom thing that was discussed here a month or so ago. Our church started talking about this probably a decade ago - moms and dads have possibly less time and definitely different priorities than they did 15-20 years ago and there's just fewer volunteers. How do you arrange activities under these circumstances? I don't think most organizations have solved this. As the older generation of volunteers starts "retiring" from their roles, there are fewer and fewer people to take over.

[Anonymous]

There are two recent factors which come to mind for reducing parent interest. 1) Shift to schools requiring formal volunteer registration to assist with any school activity. There's the time required to complete the steps/checks and the privacy issues of having schools hold your personal information in case of hacks. Some decided it wasn't worth it. 2) Covid vaccine requirements for volunteers were a factor for some in not returning after schools re-opened. The requirements are gone now, but after a lot of time has elapsed, schedules get shifted and it's not as automatic to return.

[Anonymous]

I’m not still mad about school closures or anything, but when the schools barred parents from entering the building (when the kids first went back in person), I was like “ok, fine!” I never really enjoyed my volunteer experiences. Happy to have an out.

[Anonymous]

It’s more related to showing up, needing 2 people but expecting 6 and standing around doing nothing for hours because it’s so unorganized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not still mad about school closures or anything, but when the schools barred parents from entering the building (when the kids first went back in person), I was like “ok, fine!” I never really enjoyed my volunteer experiences. Happy to have an out.

Does that keep you from Scouts and rec sports and stuff too though?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not still mad about school closures or anything, but when the schools barred parents from entering the building (when the kids first went back in person), I was like “ok, fine!” I never really enjoyed my volunteer experiences. Happy to have an out.

Does that keep you from Scouts and rec sports and stuff too though?

DP, I got more involved with our local rec club. They did everything possible to stay open while schools were doing everything possible to stay closed

[Anonymous]

Covid exposed even more inequity but also slowed it all down and allowed people to focus inward and not on their community. I see this in the PTA. We have 40-50 parents who volunteer out of a school of 400 families and most of these parents can just put their kid into a paid activity or go to a fun paid festival on weekends instead of setting up for a festival on school grounds. Free to all students and benefitting all the families that cant volunteer or financially contribute due to multiple jobs, many kids etc. We are all burned out now but not many new families are stepping up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not still mad about school closures or anything, but when the schools barred parents from entering the building (when the kids first went back in person), I was like “ok, fine!” I never really enjoyed my volunteer experiences. Happy to have an out.

Does that keep you from Scouts and rec sports and stuff too though?

DP, I got more involved with our local rec club. They did everything possible to stay open while schools were doing everything possible to stay closed

PP here and that's how we felt about our rec club, but I haven't met anyone else in person who would say anything like that.

I will also note to the OP's point that HS sports were plenty active while my ES kids were stuck at home on computers. So it doesn't seem like booster clubs should be suffering on that logic. Just there's been a general disruption.

[Anonymous]

I blame phone addiction. The fractured attention makes people feel frazzled and like they have no time. They are also constantly fed useless garbage content that breeds entitlement.