Category: volunteering

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Disconnect between what people want and do?

I can’t afford a subscription to The Chronicle of Philanthropy to read the latest study about giving to the poor, but I’m not surprised that it concludes “Many donors say they want to support charities that help the nation’s most vulnerable citizens, but their giving patterns don’t support that goal,” since many people say that they want to help the homeless, for example, but then these same people are uninterested in volunteering to help this population.

Volunteering in direct service gives participants first-hand experience in shelters and other programs that serve the needy. These experiences, while short of actually personally utilizing these services, make lasting impressions on PMD volunteers.

Our younger volunteers have even gone so far as to tell us that they think that everyone should have the awareness-building experience of volunteering in a shelter, despite the obvious greater issue of eliminating the need for homeless shelters.

And while many people will decide to try to help the needy in more ways than direct service volunteering, I think that their early experiences do shape and influence how they do so, whether by voting choices, personal and corporate philanthropy, etc.

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PMD Projects Updated for 2008

Despite a severe stomach bug, I updated the list of PMD projects on the web site and emailed several descriptions to PMD’s private email list of 900+ people, many of which I hope will decide to sign up to volunteer for something.

The cozy and cute, no-sew fleece blankets for needy kids return for an encore on 1/16 evening, and karaoke with elders makes a debut on 1/21 MLK Day.

I’ve also begun the massive volunteer effort to staff the Blue Lobster Bowl of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl on 2/9, beginning with making a training video on 1/12. This is the only PMD project for which we require training and practice prior to volunteering. Given the fast and competitive high school students, we volunteers really benefit from preparing a week in advance of the 7:30 AM starting time.

I’m hoping that our annual return to sorting donations for an emergency clothing program for the poor and homeless (1/27) and to selecting and sending books requested in writing by prisoners (2/2) will motivate people to participate as well. This is the only time PMD will be offering these particular projects in 2008 since we’ve learned that this time of year is when the most volunteers have traditionally participated.

I also hope to receive more project sign up email messages than email bounces soon.

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Questions Raised by Boston Homeless Census

I just returned from helping out for a third year with the annual Homeless Census for the City of Boston. This year, I was part of a team of six assigned to some of the subway stations. (Last year, I was assigned to the South End, and a few years before I was assigned to the Fens.)
Most of the recently improved MBTA stations don’t have good places for shelter from winter weather, with few nooks and more metal and stone in windswept areas. Yet at the last station we visited, we observed an “emergency exit only” door propped open, and transit officer Steve (who accompanied us for safety and T access) confirmed that someone was indeed sleeping in the warm space above. Another volunteer and I introduced ourselves, and the slightly inebriated man welcomed an opportunity to sleep in a shelter and perhaps obtain some medical attention for a shoulder injury sustained when he had slipped on the ice earlier in the day.
While we waiting for the City’s emergency van to arrive and give him a sandwich and ride to a shelter, I spent a half hour chatting with Jerry, who thought that he had been homeless for at least 10 of his 48 years. As a volunteer, I felt pretty good about myself, having found a homeless person, made a personal connection, and gotten him into some shelter for the night.

Yet after the van departed, the transit officer revealed that Jerry is a regular occupant of a simple piece of cardboard in the nook of that particular MBTA station.

Should transit workers continue to allow Jerry to sleep in the emergency exit area of this station every night, thus enabling him to continue to drink and be homeless? Or, should they follow the rules and force him out into the elements (since most shelters require guests to be sober) when they close?

Is it more humane to respect Jerry’s life choices versus letting him risk severe exposure while he is drinking and homeless?

For people like Jerry who are chronically homeless and substance-dependent, I am uncertain.

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How Commonwealth Corps can become unique

I’d been hoping that MA Governor Devel Patrick’s early goal of creating a Commonwealth Corps would not come to fruition because, in my opinion, so far it seems redundant and misses the opportunity to distinguish itself from Americorps and charities’ existing volunteer programs.

Unfortunately, it appears that the administration is launching Commonwealth Corps. While I am excited that resources will be dedicated to promote volunteering, I am concerned that like many existing charities that seek to engage older/experienced people in volunteerism (like our local Generations Inc.), the governor is focusing resources into small stipends instead of critical charity infrastructure that would better recruit and retain volunteers.

For example, rather than providing a very modest stipend per volunteer, the Commonwealth Corps should invest in building faster and more efficient models that will use professional marketing and recruitment plans to generate applicants and then respond to and screen them rapidly, so people don’t lose patience and interest (and come to feel unneeded) while over-burdened staff struggle to respond, which we saw after crises like the hurricanes, but occurs regularly. The Commonwealth Corps should also incorporate metrics for analyzing effectiveness and retention, and perhaps conduct marketing research that they can share with all nonprofits to engage more volunteers overall, for which there is a distinct need.

And before marketing the need for volunteers, considerable effort should be made to help charities prepare unique and high-impact volunteer titles with responsibilities clearly defined, much like for-profit companies develop job descriptions.

Furthermore, as I’ve found as both a volunteer and a manager of volunteers, investing in training for supervisors of volunteers and supporting these supervisors, will go a long way toward retaining the new Commonwealth Corps volunteers. In order to keep at it, volunteers need to feel needed, understand how they are making a difference, be adequately prepared to be useful, and not that their time is being wasted. Volunteers also need to have a host of other, personal needs met. Most of the time, efforts made by their direct supervisors, not just stipends for parking or lunch, are responsible for these key determinants for success and retention.

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Holiday volunteering onslaught begins

As some of you know, PMD has been receiving inquiries from well-intentioned people seeking volunteer opportunities for their families on Thanksgiving and Christmas, to my chagrin, since PMD pretty much promotes volunteering on any day of the year EXCEPT these hectic and overly popular holidays.

However, PMD is advertising that volunteers of all ages are needed on Christmas Eve Day, Monday 12/24, to sing carols and to prep and serve hearty appetizers 2:30-5:00 PM to cheer up a small group of frail, formerly homeless elders who are now permanently housed in Boston’s South End. (We organized a much longer Thanksgiving meal preparation for them on 11/18.)

In lieu of volunteering to help strangers on a hectic holiday flooded by too many volunteers, too little work, and small spaces, consider volunteering on non-holidays when you are needed more, OR include isolated neighbors and colleagues in your family’s traditional gatherings (or just for dessert) on the holidays themselves, OR do something that a charity says it needs, like collect specific, needed items, and deliver them. (See PMD’s Answers to FAQs.)

To avoid my holiday grumpiness, please note that I am not aware of local charities seeking volunteers to serve meals on Christmas. (Little Brothers-Friends of the Elderly seeks people to deliver meals and visit elders in the late morning.) Charities’ regular volunteers can usually handle holiday meals–and guests tend to prefer to be served by people they know rather than strangers. Plus, there is the matter of the criminal history record checks that are taking in excess of 10 business days this time of year. (Read my past blog entries about CORI checks and confusion.)

If you must volunteer at a shelter, group home, or the like, I strongly recommend gently contacting volunteer coordinators at local shelters to see whether they need help on “lesser” holidays when they tend to be understaffed and post-holiday morale may be low, such as Boxing Day (12/26), New Year’s Eve (12/31), New Year’s Day (1/1), Martin Luther King Day (PMD has an easy and fun project on 1/21/08), the day AFTER Thanksgiving, and the summer time (when their core volunteers and college students take vacations). Be gentle-they are likely hearing from orders-of-magnitude-more volunteers than they can place in their programs on Christmas, and we, of course, want them to focus on their guests and the people who will definitely be volunteering, rather than distracted and stressed by the sheer volume of demanding messages from those who they cannot match/place, right?

There is an art to finding a good match between your needs and interests and those of the recipient charity and its clients. I regard this as a lifelong process, much like finding a profession/job that one loves, as your needs and interests evolve and as you learn more about people, charities, and their needs. Hopefully, volunteering with PMD throughout the year will help you “survey” the charity scene so you can get to know a few charities beyond their web sites.

For example, last month when PMD turned 15 years old, I heard from someone who volunteered with PMD nearly two years ago. She wrote:
I only did one activity with PMD and that was to help make lunch at the Women’s Lunch Place. It was such a positive experience for me though that I have been making donations of clothing and sundries and other supplies along with money to the WLP ever since.

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Super greatness from those who show up

PMD volunteers who show up as planned, on-time, for the entire project, are super great! We had just such a group preparing our eleventh annual Thanksgiving meal on 11/18.

I just read a guest posting in Tactical Philanthropy about volunteers who don’t show up and create other problems.

PMD strives for 100% attendance. We carefully plan our volunteer projects so that we match the right number of volunteers to the tasks needed and work spaces.

Having the expected number of people to complete the tasks needed is important. We know from experience that too few or too many people, or people arriving late or leaving early, compromises effectiveness and satisfaction.

PMD achieves 90%-100% attendance is because we clearly

  • Explain how volunteers will make a difference
  • Require and thank them for a firm commitment 10-30 days in advance (and have found that most people cannot commit reliably more than 30 days in advance)
  • Confirm and then communicate details in advance
  • Articulate the effect (on charities, clients, and the rest of the volunteers) from not participating as planned
  • Repeatedly provide clear instructions on what to do if one discovers s/he cannot participate as planned, since this happens occasionally to the best of us.

If someone is unexpectedly absent, the project manager and I follow up to find out what’s up, and I go so far as to describe the negative impact of someone’s absence.

If it happens again, I caution the potential volunteer to be sure s/he can reliably and responsibly commit in order to do more good than harm. And if it happens again, I remove the person from our lists until assurance of changes that will ensure reliable participation.

Doing more good than harm is one of the expectations that PMD regularly communicates to volunteers. This helps clarify the impact of not showing up or not following safety measures.

Putting things in perspective helps, like when you’re new and you find out that a charity’s clients are looking forward to the meal you help cook because past PMD volunteers did good to engender this positive attitude, or that not giving money to a client will keep things uncomplicated for the PMD volunteers who follow you.

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Dating before marriage analogy to volunteerism

Friday’s Financial Times has an article about joining nonprofit boards. PMD definitely recommends this process of getting to know the organization, its strengths, its needs, and your potential roles BEFORE you sign on for a 3+ year commitment.

Just as you generally shouldn’t propose marriage on the first date, I recommend that you don’t suggest joining our board until you’ve gotten to know us beyond our web presence. With the demise of effective board fairs, it seems like it is difficult to find appropriate board candidates (and dates) in Boston.

It starts with determining whether an organization’s mission and vision are in line with your values and motivations. Then one should volunteer/visit and engage in a “courtship” process.

PMD would be happy to court you for its board once you indicate genuine knowledge and interest. We are currently seeking a clerk and board directors.

Let’s switch focus from 3-year board governance commitments to hands-on volunteering: Although the tide is slowly turning, most charities still expect people to “marry” (i.e., volunteer hands-on) for 6 months or more without much courtship. PMD’s diverse array of one-time “speed dating” (i.e., hands-on volunteering) opportunities serves to help give people a sense of the culture, people, cause, etc. We’ve lost volunteers to ongoing commitments to some of our recipient charities, and we’ve also gained recipient charities from our volunteers who “play the field.”

These are folks who prefer not to settle down with helping just one charity. With PMD, they won’t be bored with the same volunteer activity week after week.

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PMD Volunteers Assemble New Harry Potter Books

It’s social justice that all (sighted and blind) kids who are excited to read should have access to these reading materials, particularly when it is a cultural phenomenon. No one wants to be left out.
This past week, 15 PMD volunteers confidentially collated, folded, married, checked, and stitched nearly 600 copies of volume 7 of 10 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and then helped box and label the two large boxes containing each braille book for shipping for the National Braille Press.
7/15/07 group photo
More than 850 PMD volunteers have assisted the National Braille Press since 1993. PMD volunteers have been helping make the braille Harry Potter books since the release of Goblet of Fire within a month of the print release in 2000. PMD volunteers also did the Order of the Phoenix in 2003, and the Half-Blood Prince in 2005-The latter was also released the same day as the print version, thanks to Scholastic allowing the Press access to the files in advance of the release date. Hopefully more publishers will give early access to the Press since it has demonstrated repeatedly that it can operate according to strict confidentiality standards.
On behalf of all 15 PMD volunteers bound by strict confidentiality agreements, I particularly thank the spouses, partners, friends, family, and employers who were patient when we volunteers uncharacteristically weren’t able to tell you exactly what we’d been doing this past week.
Elizabeth Ryan and David LaPointe Collate Pages
Elizabeth and David team up to collate pages of volume 7.
Melissa Kavlakli Folds
Melissa carefully folds sections of volume 7.
Patrice Oliver & Martha Dorsch Check
Pat and Martha marry sections and check page numbers.
Jan Doremus checks page numbers
Jan meticulously checks page numbers.
Ellen Kranzer stitches together volume 7
 Ellen stitches together volume 7.
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Stolen groceries delay lunch, but don’t dampen enthusiasm

A huge satchel of groceries was stolen from the curb in front of the Anna Bissonnette House (ABH) in the South End on July 14th. This heavy bag contained $60 worth of spinach, cheese, butter, summer squash, apricot nectar, crackers, and tomatoes that volunteers from British Telecom Conferencing were going to use to prepare lunch for the 40 frail and formerly homeless elders who permanently live at ABH. 

The satchel was on the curb for less than a minute, and was taken when volunteers were distracted by a bus melee while I parked three car lengths back. We discovered that it was missing after we had divided up the dishes to be cooked and were looking for the missing ingredients. (fyi: I filed a police report due to the outrageous nature of this theft, stealing from the needy, but don’t expect that anything will come of it.)

The seven volunteers and I adjusted the menu and someone rushed out to purchase some replacement groceries, only delaying lunch by 30 minutes and causing the cancellation of pre-lunch bingo.

We always say that our volunteers should be flexible and that our volunteer project managers should expect the unexpected, but the egregious nature of this theft really surprised me.

I thank the volunteers who made a delicious meal despite the early setback, and the understanding elders who understood why lunch was delayed and why we held a drawing instead of playing bingo as planned.

Volunteers ricing potatoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Preparing cantaloupe appetizers

Plating lunches 

 

 

 

 

 

 

British Telecom group photo

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I really like feeding people….good food.

I really like feeding people, whether they are family, friends, homeless people at a shelter, or formerly homeless elders who now live permanently at the Anna Bissonnette House in my former neighborhood, Boston’s South End. Maybe I’m nondiscriminating since everyone can be hungry.

Call it selfish, but I feel good when I prepare a nice meal for people. To me, a nice meal is something delicious and comforting and made from scratch, not something packaged/unhealthy, which is why I particularly like cooking for people who share this view.

On June 23rd, Greg, Eric, Karen, Jeremy and I worked hard to put together a popular luncheon that had frail elders taking seconds, thirds, and even fourths for dinner later at the Anna Bissonnette House. We served fresh fruit, crackers, and cheese for starters. Then Greg roasted and sauced* 16 kosher chickens (that had been frozen and donated to me by Trader Joe’s); Eric made fresh, summer vegetable medley; Jeremy made potato salad with lots of vegetables hidden in it; and Karen made low-cal, glazed chocolate sheet cake, all from scratch. Yum! *I highly recommend making quick barbecue sauce using the recipe from Cooks Illustrated.

Locally, Rosie’s Place recently wrote that they are actively trying to improve the quality of their meals by including more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and reducing fats, sodium, and processed foods, which only increases the pleasure I have in planning and preparing a delicious dinner for them. PMD will be there on Sunday, July 29, 2:45-7:45 PM, and we welcome your help if you are age 16 or older, male or female, and/or welcome your financial support to help us purchase top quality ingredients. The more people who help, the less work per person and the more ambitious a menu we can execute. Please sign up by 7/19 so I have time to plan accordingly.

While cooking is by far one of the most physically demanding activities that PMD volunteers take on, it’s incredibly rewarding. As Robert Egger, founder of D.C. Central Kitchen, said in the Washington Post, “I’m always amazed when people come in to volunteer at the kitchen and realize they’re having a good time, that it’s not ashes and sackcloth.”

This short interview by Tamara Jones is worth reading. Egger points out an emerging caste system, which is one reason why PMD has supported Hearth (formerly called the Committee to End Elder Homelessness) for nearly a decade. “You have all these efforts to feed hungry children when the reality is there are probably more hungry seniors in America than there are children. These are men and women who fought World War II. These are men and women who led the civil rights struggle. These are men and women who built our roads and a million other things that we owe them a debt of gratitude for, yet we refuse to even deal with the issue of senior hunger in America.”

In the interview, Egger raises important issues of respect for and empowerment of hungry people, many of whom are employed but still cannot make ends meet. I am not satisfied with serving anything of lesser quality than what I would feel good about serving to my own family and friends, and fortunately I have the ability to be uncompromising about this.

If you’d like to learn about food stamps and making food choices with limited funds, read the comments/tips that people posted in response to the Congressional Food Stamp Challenge in the spring. Congressman McGovern (and his wife) from MA was among the partipants who blogged about their experiences and received very interesting comments online.

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