Volunteering

[Frogger]

2 things:

I figure I'll need a bunch of community service hours for college applications. I'm thinking of volunteering at a animal shelter, because it sounds very rewarding. Anyone have experience with volunteering? I don't want to volunteer at a hospital as it would be dealing with people, at least this is half the amount of people

I also feel that volunteering will help me "put myself out there", so I can face my fear and work on my anxiety. But it doesn't necessarily need to be hospital work. Do you guys have any other ideas for volunteer work?

[Antidote]

I think you're on the right track with your idea. Animals decompress anxiety and give you something to focus on other than humans. Also ...volunteering = connections and experience.

[WintersTale]

I want to volunteer at a soup kitchen this holiday season, because I feel people need something this time of year.

Of course, my anxiety will be through the roof. But my sister, mom, and my sis's kids may do it as well.

[Firefly09]

I have. It's very rewarding.

[Chantellabella]

Have you thought of volunteering at your local library?

I'm a Youth/Teen Librarian and I have over 320 teen volunteers on my Teen Advisory Board who volunteer for me throughout the year and then in the summer, I have close to 100 who volunteer in our work/study program.
Our teens do many things for us:
1) help us run our kid programs by setting them up, counting participates, puppet shows, helping kids with crafts, preparing crafts
2) run the Summer Reading Club, by signing up kids to read for the summer and giving them incentives when they complete the log
3) put books in order on carts
4) clean books and straighten up the shelves
5) plan our teen program, name them and come up with details for them (the Teen Advisory Board does this)
6) run the teen programs
7) some of the older ones are allowed to shelve DVD's and baby books
8. they help us set up the Santa's Village and wear costumes to greet the kids
9) they participate in our multicultural program and help teach about their cultures
10) and they are our backup for any task that needs to be done in the library

In other words, we use a ton of teens and need them to do our job.

The pay is a great reference letter,lots of great leadership and job training, and lots of volunteer hours for scholarships and college entrance.

Not all libraries do this so you may have to call around to a few. The city where I work has one library but it's a major city, so that's why I have so many teens. When I worked at a Dallas branch I had about 60 teens who helped me. If you're interested in getting some details how to contact your library, pm me and I can give you some suggestions.

I think it's a great idea to volunteer. I tell the teens that when their application has the same GPA as someone else's, the deciding factor is your community service and leadership experience. If you have a kick*ss recommendation letter with it, you got it! The majority of my teens who try for scholarships and entrance get in to the college of their choice. Some have told me it was the recommendation letter and amount of service hours that did it.