Making Time for Volunteering in Everyday Living

I have met a lot of people who work and go to school who really want to do something for the community by involving themselves physically and become a part of the people or activities that give them a satisfaction of helping people.

My suggestion to people is that they should find things or ways to volunteer for the community which they can accommodate in their daily work schedules. Since their basic aim is to be able to do more than just donate money, they can find things to do within drive-able distance to their work locations. Most of my friends and family who don't have much time to spare during the day are usually trying to find some orphanages or blind schools in their work area to go and spend time with the kids or the elderly during their lunch time. This helps them get away for a break and gives them a feeling of giving time for something invaluable.

Also, volunteering is helping and it doesn't need to be restricted to going to a temple, church, orphanage or any such place. I think what matters is feeling someone's pain or having the heart to share your good with the others. So if an old woman is carrying a heavy shopping bag, one can simple volunteer to carry it for her. If an old man is trying to cross a street, we can volunteer by holding his hand and helping him over to the other side.

Volunteering is all about Kindness and helping others. It should never be restricted to a location, time or type. As long as we all have a desire to be kind and help others, we are volunteering. :)

Easter Celebrations at the Orphanages!

Festivals are such a good time to share love and gifts! I love to go and meet kids and the elderly on every festival that I can to spread love an happiness in any small way possible.
The smile I see on the faces of the people makes the festival even more joyous!

This time for Easter, I have decided to make baskets and take them to an orphanage here in MI. I haven't ever done this before so I am definitely looking for ideas online and asking people to help me too. I have bought a few baskets already and some gifts  to give away to the kids with a few of my friends so we can talk about Easter, it's significance and maybe even hide a few eggs for them to find.

I am trying to find as many ideas as I can to stuff the baskets with chocolates and gifts. I want to make sure I make this Easter a memorable one for the kids at the orphanage and they don't feel less loved. I am hoping to get together with three other friends and go there the Sunday and spend the entire day with them, playing and listening to them, maybe reading to them so they feel happy about the festival and have a good time.
Any suggestions to make it better would be greatly appreciated! :) Happy Easter in advance!

Valentine's with Volunteers! :)

They say Valentine's day is all about love and love is something to we need to spread and share! with everyone we can so this Valentine's day, my volunteer group and I decided to get together and share some love.

We all gathered at our community house in downtown Birmingham and sat together chatting and munching on cupcakes basically trying to decide what we can do to make someone's Valentine day special, someone who's not able to afford a grand celebration usually. So we ended up deciding to go to the Homestead Res Of Beverly Hills to spend some time with the elderly and make them feel loved.

We got there at around 1:30 in the afternoon after talking and making arrangements with the people there and took cakes, balloons and lots of other food items with us. Once we got there, we set up all the stuff in the community hall and invited everyone to come and make themselves comfortable. Everyone came in and they had a great time eating, talking, playing games and even singing songs! It was an awesome afternoon.

Once everyone was done doing whatever their hearts desired and ate to their content, we gave out little memoirs, as a gift for Valentine's day!

It was a great celebration and I felt very satisfied after it was done!
It's so true what they say, Happiness doubles if you spread it! :)

Celebrations & Volunteering - A trip down memory lane!

So since I belong to India which is a land of festivals and celebrations, I have grown up admiring the coming together of people of all ages and religions to celebrate each and every festival. It didn't matter if it was a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or a Sikh festival, we all got together to celebrate! And the celebrations didn't just involve eating, bursting crackers, wearing new clothes, decorating the houses during holiday time, it meant a lot more! It meant reaching out to the less privileged and make them feel less unfortunate, make them feel loved and a part of the celebrations of the entire country.

We went out to orphanages, old people homes and even temples, where people who didn't have family or enough money to enjoy festivals the way they would have wanted to and distributed sweets, clothes and fire crackers. The smiles we brought to each face made our festivals lighten up even more and the feeling of having so many people blessing you was amazing.

The next day, since everyone's had so much fun bursting crackers, eating and drinking at parks and other places, there used to be litter all around so we gathered kids and other volunteers and picked up the dirt from our parks! Everyone felt good about it and it helped keep the place clean at the same time. I feel a lot of what I am today, is thanks to the volunteering and meeting people of all walks of life. I believe I started to appreciate what I had and how privileged my life was, after I started volunteering and helping people who didn't have a lifestyle like mine. It was a great feeling! A feeling of happiness, satisfaction and that of doing something for the community.

Every festival we celebrated, we'd donate an amount my friends and I had collected to organizations, like HelpAge India or CRY and our parents would match up the amount. HelpAge India even gave us trophies for the amounts we collected and that made us even more proud and kept us motivated to do more.
I think a major part of my childhood's memories are these celebrations that involved volunteering and meeting kids and elderly and spending time with them, giving them a chance to have a great celebration.

Volunteering at Gleaners!

The past weekend was cold and snowy and I didn't feel like doing anything until I got a call from one of my friends who asked if I wanted to go and give some blankets, canned food and drinks that we had collected a while ago and some Peanut butter & Jelly sandwiches that the temple had made to the Gleaners' community over at Downtown Detroit. I was obviously more than happy to do it!
So we got into his Chevy Traverse and drove in the cold and snow. After we reached there, we were helped by some of the staff and other volunteers unload all the stuff. There was a lot of stuff but we all got together and got everything out. Once that was done, we were supposed to separate perishables and non-perishables and stock them before they were given out so that they didn't go bad. So we started doing that, made necessary signs to indicate what needed to go where and then filled up the huge cartons with all the collected stuff.
Once all the stocking was done, we just cleared up the rest of the area so that the huge boxes when required to be brought out have enough room to be moved about. So we just aligned everything to one side of the walls, cleaned up and marked all the entries. By this time we were tired and hungry, so we took a few minutes break, drank some water and got back to work.
Now we were just supposed to give out the sandwiches we had prepared. One of the associates at the community helped us organize the whole thing and we gave out individually wrapped PB&J sandwiches to everyone. Little kids were so happy that it almost brought a tear to my eye to think we waste so much food everyday and complain about how somethings are not as tasty as we would want them to be; and here I see little kids be happy with one sandwich. Made me count my blessings and vow that I would continue to volunteer and try to make a difference to the community in whichever little way it is possible from my side. We got done with giving out food and drinks, thanked Gleaners' for the opportunity and headed back home. All in all, I had a very tiring day but I felt more satisfied than tired because it gave me such a huge feeling of doing something good for the community. I hope to spread the word so that more people can join hands to try and bring about a little change from their side in whatever little way possible.

Volunteering...where, how to begin....?!

Volunteering, as many know is one of most noble things we can do to give back to the community.
I feel there is a lot of scope out there to choose from but sometimes people find it overwhelming and hard to decide where and how they can contribute or be a part of a good cause.

Since I have been doing this for such a long time now and I have helped quite a few people get into the spirit of volunteering, I thought I'd shed a little light on how I decided what I wanted to do to give back to the community or how I have helped people choose their calling as far as 'offering help' is concerned.

I believe we all have a passion within us, some like to play sports, some like to read, some travel a lot and a lot others.
I believe we must choose a volunteering activity that is closest to our passion or hobby because that way we never feel forced into it. Even though volunteering is something we choose to do, we may still feel pressured by it at some point. So to avoid that, we need to do things that satisfy our inner passion and at the same time, give us a feeling of serving the community. For instance, I love to meet new people, so I volunteer at the Gleaners Community in downtown Detroit where I go and meet people and work with them to help the underprivileged with food, clothes and even books. This helps me expand my horizons and at the same time gives me the great feeling of doing good for the community.

If someone is interested in sports, they should join a volunteer committee for the specially-abled to help them play sports; if someone likes to read, they can go to a blind school or volunteer at the Assisted living homes and read to the blind kids or older people.
If someone is restricted and unable to travel or move around a lot, they can simply stay at home and do some online volunteering as well. There are volunteer blogs/ articles to write that help people become aware of how and what is going on around them and ways they can help.

I feel it's not about the money, it's about how much time and effort you are willing to put in to give back to your community in some small way.
I only wish to motivate one person every time to get into the spirit of volunteering and hope others can join in! :)

My Passion: Multicultural Interaction and Volunteering

As someone who has had the opportunity to travel to different places and see varied cultures, I have developed a unique hobby, that of bringing together people and thoughts of different cultures, races, ethnicities and backgrounds which I achieve via offering volunteering opportunities as it helps those in need and at the same time encourages interaction of people from different backgrounds.

I have come to feel now that this has become more of a passion than just a hobby. Basically, I love to meet people and interact with them on different topics, be it personal, professional, political or others. And the volunteering helps me give back to the community in whatever little way possible. Over time, I have found that a lot of people wanted to do something similar to this but never found a platform to. I like to bring together people who may be a little introvert and mix them with those who like to talk, are expressive and who can prod those not as extrovert to talk and become an active part in the discussions because their ethnic background is something they are most comfortable to talk about. And when everyone talks about their race, their religion, their ethnicity, they realize how much similarity there is amongst all and that in turn helps them to come together to help communities as a whole.

I feel interacting with people from all backgrounds, besides bringing people together and volunteering for the betterment of the community as a whole, also helps in making a well-rounded personality of an individual.
I am trying to encourage people to do something or the other to give back to the community, it doesn't have to be financial only, any sort of volunteer service is a good start and it can make a whole lot of difference in many lives.