In today's culture, there seems to be an upswing of volunteerism. I'm quite happy to report that Iowa has the second highest rate of volunteerism in the US. (And I think I may be making up the word 'volunteerism' or the way to use it, but it works for me today.) One of the things that has bugged me about the US for a long time is the fact that we are very individual. Not a lot of people tend to stop and help out a person who needs it. Not a lot of people think about helping those in need. The fact that volunteering is on the rise makes me feel a little bit better.
This weekend I went to my art groups Sew 'n Swap. We get together and swap fabric and work on projects. We've started having a project available for those that want it, but you can still just sit and work on your own projects as well. We had a large number of people come in and rather than join the ranks of those working on a project, I decided to stand up and help everyone else. I knew (we had just had a talk about this on Wednesday) that our fearless leader wanted to start having volunteers at our events, someone who would help the leader/host with everything and make it a little less stressful. So I decided to help and it felt a lot better than sitting there watching other people run around.
I didn't sacrifice much more than my time as I took the pattern home and made one on my own. But I feel like I helped, I helped people and gave them a great first impression of our group, and I made some new friends I might not have.
Do you have any groups that you volunteer with? Do you do any volunteer activities? Do you give back in anyway?
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