Volunteering theory from the cheesy-toast guy I feel lighter somehow when I volunteer: I’m happier. As though I’ve received the gift
The alarm goes off at something like 5:30 a.m. Both of us struggle to turn the light on, to hit the snooze button, wondering what the heck is going on. Aren’t we, like, retired? Well, yes and no. My wife and I donate a very small amount of time (out of proportion to its importance) to an early morning kids’ breakfast club in the city, hence the oh-dark-hundred hours wake-up. She’s the scrambled egg lady; I’m the cheesy toast guy. To be fair, we don’t do it alone and are guided by the much harder work and energy of several others; OK, we’re more their assistants. And, of course, we’re not unique: every day, across this city, across the country, countless other volunteers grease the wheels of social assistance, filling foodbanks, helping seniors, undertaking toy drives. Friends of ours, for example, spend a day and a half every week preparing a meal for vulnerable folks. That’s awesome; so are they.
You’d be right if you said it’s the kids that are the draw. The product of single-parent families often, or both parents working early, or a grandparent-led family, unable for whatever reason to provide the luxury of a hot, sit-down breakfast. Can you imagine how hard it would be to go to school, or learn, hungry? Me either. The kids frequently come with homework, more often than not play games (cards are big this season, for some reason). Their families come from all over the world, but in the end are mostly just from Hamilton, near where my wife taught and where I worked for a few terrific years. They’re kids just like ours were, with different needs. Not their fault.
This volunteering thing isn’t unique to Canada, either. I spent a few years in the U.S. working for an association that sets policy for American medical schools and teaching hospitals. Pretty big deal — only 600 or so employees, but several hundred thousand faculty, students, residents. I can’t recall a day when there wasn’t a message in my email inbox about a fundraiser for something — a walkathon for cancer, a fundraiser for a bereaved family; you get the picture. It is true that for its size, the U.S. has a bikinibottom sized social net to help its less fortunate, but the volunteering thing was beyond that. My boss was the executive VP, a wonderful person, a gift in herself. Through her actions, the association had a ‘We Care’ event: any employee could undertake a volunteer activity for the day — planting shrubs on the property of an HIV-AIDS hospice, just a for instance.
I used to say that Americans do more volunteering than Canadians because of that tiny social net, but on the whole, I think we do donate as much time and energy. For example, there’s a National Philanthropy Day, just past (who knew?).
Take the wonderful people we meet every Wednesday morning. StatsCan says that in 2010, over 13 million adults in Canada (they count adults as anyone over 15: Whoever made that calculation has obviously never raised teenagers) donated two billion hours of work, amounting to one million full-time jobs. And that number was sizably up from years previously.
Maybe Canadians are just, um — how would you say this nicely? — quieter about it than our American cousins.
So what causes this thing? This setting the alarm for 5:30 when you’re retired? Taking a day off work to dig plants around a hospice? Walkathons, for Pete’s sake? There’s something going on here. I have (this won’t surprise you) a theory. Did you notice I used the word donate a couple of times? Cue Mr. Webster: he says it’s something like ‘presenting a gift or grant or contribution.’ The root word, ‘Nate,’ means gift. So Nathaniel and Nathan both imply a gift of God. They’re pretty impressive names if you ask me; aren’t all children gifts?
Here’s the thing, though: something funny happens on our Wednesday mornings. Although we’re serving breakfast, the cheesy toast I told you about, the gifting seems to go the other way. I feel lighter somehow when I leave (OK, the coffee has begun to sink in, but it’s more than that): I’m happier, better. As though I’ve received the gift. Perhaps I have. It’s the gift of meaning — the gift of those kids and our fellow volunteers — our need, greater than anything else, to help others. Maybe it’s a gene. If it is, it’s a good one. It helps keep us together. Even if that alarm is awful early.
It’s the gift of meaning — the gift of those kids and our fellow volunteers — our need to help others
Dave Davis is a writer, speaker and retired family doc. You can follow him @drauthor24.