BOSTON, Mass. (09/30/2007) -- “I started volunteering through my fraternity, Sigma Chi, in college,” said Rick Wallwork, the Associate Director of Boston Cares, “it’s great exposure…it shows people another aspect of the community.”
Boston Cares is an organization that works with a variety of non-profit community outreaches throughout the Boston area to aide them in finding volunteers to meet their needs. With over 4,000 volunteers in 2007, the organization is centered around a team-based concept, which walks each volunteer through an orientation and then enables them with access to their website (bostoncares.org), where members can sign up to work at certain events.
This program is one of hundreds of new organizations that caters to the needs of the modern businessman or woman who is on a tight schedule and may not have a huge amount of free time. Instead of demanding a long-term volunteering commitment when volunteering, these new programs allow people who are not able to regularly sacrifice their time, to still participate within their community.
“I keep thinking about the word ‘service’ and how in our culture it is better to sacrifice rather than filling ourselves,” said The Option Institute co-founder, Barry Neil Kaufman. Kaufman, who started this alternative volunteering organization, said, “There is clearly something wondrous about giving and requiring nothing in return. The wondrous experience is in the giving. And it’s the same…because the giving or the service is the same as loving.”
With short-term volunteer opportunities at the American Heart Association, The Greater Boston Food Bank, Vista Care, Cambridge Family and Children’s Service, The Esplanade Association, Reach out and Read, Red Sox Mentoring Challenge, The AIDS Action Committee, and The New England Aquarium Volunteer Program, to name only a few; it is evident that there is a diverse range of volunteer opportunities available in the local Boston area. People are needed to help in all different venues from medical practice to childcare, which allows them to offer up their service in the field of their expertise.
When asked why she was running a table at the Boston Cares Volunteer Fair on September 12, 2007, in downtown Government Center, Krista Bishop from the Make a Wish Foundation said, “(that her primary goal was) to get the word out there about Make a Wish.” Bishop made a point to state that short-term volunteer options are open, not only to working citizens, but also to the 200,000 college students who are enrolled in the 50 colleges within the Boston area.
Student volunteers often act as Wish Granters; the intermediaries who speak directly to the terminally ill children with whom the organization works. The primary goal of the wish granters is to find out each child’s life long wish, in the hopes that the organization can help this dream come true. Student volunteers can also act as special events coordinators, planners of large fundraising functions, as well as interns for the organization itself.
Not only are students and citizens becoming more aware of the need to volunteer, but large business corporations are also stepping up to the plate, and supporting the efforts of non-profit organizations. “Fidelity is a huge supporter for Make A Wish,” said Bishop when asked about the Make A Wish Foundation’s fifteen-year history with Fidelity Investments financial planning company. “We think it’s important to give back to the community where we have a presence,” said Veronica Johnson-Eghan, the Senior Manager at Fidelity Investments. Fidelity Investments provides financial services internationally, as well as 401K Plans, retirement plans, and they also place a large emphasis on community outreach through their volunteer branch, Fidelity Cares.
The two organizations Fidelity Investments and Boston Cares have a long business history together, dating back almost fifteen years. Encouraging people to get out there and volunteer is only one aspect of their services to the Boston region. Both Companies are also active in the field of education. Boston Cares is busy piloting a new program called Campus Initiative that is opening this Saturday on the campuses of three local universities. Fidelity Investments has partnered with the local Emerson and Nathan Hale Elementary Schools in Roxbury, as well as Umana Barnes Middle School in East Boston, to promote community service within the younger generations.
Boston Cares’ goal is to “replace the traditional means of volunteering- an ongoing commitment- with a richly diverse and wholly flexible volunteer program that allows people to volunteer when they can and for what they care about…(it) empowers people to make volunteering a part of their lives.” Boston Cares claims that not only is this beneficial to the local non- profit organizations in need of help and to the people they serve, but it is also an asset to the volunteers themselves. The organization further states that, in general, volunteering allows for people to create new perspectives, beliefs, and approaches to their lives.
By CATHERINE MOORE
