How many hours/year do you volunteer?

[Anonymous]

Way too many - I think I took on too much this year.

Girl Scout troop leader - 6+ hours/month x 9 months, plus a lot more hours during cookie season
head coach for one sport - 20-40 hours each season
assistant coach/manager for another sport - 20ish hours per season
PTA officer - 2-3 hours a week on average, sep-jun and some time over the summer
Other PTA volunteering - depends on the year, but probably at least 20-30 hours a year.
feed the homeless through a church program a few times a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because of how much of my time is taken up with child-related stuff (two young elementary kids), the past few years most of my volunteer hours have centered around the kids' schools/activities. You could argue that it's not necessarily charitable because most of the kids involved aren't coming from financial difficulty, but I think that's arguably short-sighted. If I run a couple of PTA fundraisers and part of what the PTA does with that money is provide school supplies and field trip funds for kids whose families can't afford those things and free family events they can attend, it does benefit lower income families in the community. Same with volunteering to coach a sports team -- free parent coaching keeps the cost of rec programs way down and makes them more accessible to lower income families. I do direct more of my financial contributions to organizations that don't benefit from my time and do benefit those with greater need, though, and once my kids are a bit older, there are a couple of organizations I would like to start working with more.

Forgot to answer the original question, I volunteer at least 100 hours a year, but those hours tend to come in spurts rather than being evenly distributed throughout the year.

[Anonymous]

Maybe 75 to 100 hours a year. There have been years when it was more than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Two different boards for country club: 10 hours/month

Your other volunteer service is awesome and seriously a commitment, and I guess this is volunteer work, but I wouldn't consider it charitable. OP doesn't state charitable volunteer work, but just saying.

Okay. People benefit, they just aren’t low income people.

What kinds of things do the country club boards organize?

Everything? It’s a private member owned equity club so the members are the club. Of course we have GM”s and pros and chefs and all minds of staff, but things like membership, long term planning, finance, growth etc are all run by the board. Below that things like the women or men’s 18 hole boards, jr programs, philanthropy, social, tennis etc all have their own volunteers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I never thought of donating blood as volunteering - duh!! I've been a regular donor for 16 years.

I don’t consider it volunteering. I find it odd that it would be included.

DP. I do double red donations once about every three months (minimum of 112 days between donations), and each time I do it I spend nearly three hours in the blood donation center. How is that any less volunteering my time than if I were assembling sandwiches for a soup kitchen?

[Anonymous]

2-3 hrs/month on the board for my child's sports team
4-8 hrs/month mandatory volunteering for my child's sporting events
2-3 hrs/month with my child's school PTA

I work in Social Services 40+ hrs/week (in direct service) and while I would love to volunteer in areas I don't directly serve in my M-F job, I don't have the time. Before marriage and children, I volunteered regularly (crisis hotline worker, food pantry, teaching parenting classes to teens.) I hope to use my social work background to volunteer once I retire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I never thought of donating blood as volunteering - duh!! I've been a regular donor for 16 years.

I don’t consider it volunteering. I find it odd that it would be included.

DP. I do double red donations once about every three months (minimum of 112 days between donations), and each time I do it I spend nearly three hours in the blood donation center. How is that any less volunteering my time than if I were assembling sandwiches for a soup kitchen?

I would consider that volunteering. Thanks for doing that!

[Anonymous]

I don’t actually volunteer very much right now, but my husband volunteers 12-36 hours every week as a volunteer firefighter. He does overnight shifts, so part of that time is (usually) sleeping, though there’s always the possibility that they’ll get one or more calls in the middle of the night.

[Anonymous]

It has ebbed and flowed. I have been an overnight volunteer at a homeless shelter. I have been a Sunday school teacher. I have worked doing office work at a local non-profit direct service agency. I have helped clean up local streams. I have done PTA stuff and volunteering in classrooms.

Some volunteering is for the benefit of my self and family in communities in which we participate. Some is for others. When I was single I volunteered 5-10 hours a week. That went down with young children,but when I was a sahp and my children were in school, I volunteered about 10-20 hours a week- split about between our communities and others.

Now, I am at a new place with an empty nest and about to finish up the last details of my parent’s estate and I will probably up the ante again back to the 10-20 hours a week. We shall see.


You should do what feels comfortable to you and in the amount of time that is comfortable too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I never thought of donating blood as volunteering - duh!! I've been a regular donor for 16 years.

I don’t consider it volunteering. I find it odd that it would be included.

DP. I do double red donations once about every three months (minimum of 112 days between donations), and each time I do it I spend nearly three hours in the blood donation center. How is that any less volunteering my time than if I were assembling sandwiches for a soup kitchen?

Why are you spending 3 hours there?? You're exaggerating. Whole blood collection takes about 10 minutes, the entire process takes about 45 - 60 minutes depending on your wait. DRBC takes about 45 minutes for collection (and if you take too long, they can't use it - same as whole blood), and shouldn't take much more than 1.5 hours including the health history and waiting in the hospitality area.

I work in a blood center and think it's AWESOME that you give DRBC, but don't exaggerate how long it takes because you turn off other people to considering it. My guess is you're counting door to door time including the drive or commute to the center or mobile drive site.

[Anonymous]

I volunteer 6-8 hours per month on average, more in the summer. I also work full time, and am a single parent (the club I volunteer for let's me bring my kid).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Zero.

Same here. I gave up years ago because so many places at which I would consider volunteering (no kids, no animals, no incarcerated/formerly incarcerated), wanted a commitment of 3 or 6 months. I haven't looked for places to volunteer since.

[Anonymous]

Zero.

[Anonymous]

60+

Pro bono legal services/advocacy related to homelessness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Zero.

Same here. I gave up years ago because so many places at which I would consider volunteering (no kids, no animals, no incarcerated/formerly incarcerated), wanted a commitment of 3 or 6 months. I haven't looked for places to volunteer since.

It takes a while to train volunteers. It’s a burden to organizations to train people who are not invested in their success