Volunteer

Just stumbled across the community center/food bank in my new town. Awesome! Unfortunately a lot of their work involves driving and I don’t have a car, but I’ll make a note to contact them once I have my full class/work schedule settled.

So, looking into places to volunteer in Washington, I’ve been thinking about getting involved with girl scouts. I don’t really like children, but I really loved being in girl scouts, and I feel like the type of people who get involved at it (specifically at one of the higher levels) are a little different than your typical middle schoolers.
I also need to look into homeless/other poverty services, for when I realize that I would rather deal with adults than children.
One of my roommates(-to-be) is super into animals, so I suppose if all else fails I could tag along with her to one of her many volunteer locations.

I have been volunteered to lend my fundraising expertise to the library. My dad is on the library board, and he asked me about [some specific fundraising event] since he knows that (at the moment) that’s what I do for a living. Most of the libraries in our county are having major budget issues. So I’ve already put together a ton of information for them, and I’m going to be presenting it all at the next board meeting. Hopefully some of it helps. Libraries are good things. (It’s likely that if they move to implement any of it before the end of the summer I’ll be volunteering to do half of that work too.)

I think if I can just find somewhere right away to volunteer (my time rather than my knowledge) when I move to WA, I’ll be able to be more consistent with this than I have been in years past.

So, I had decided on volunteering at an eco preservation place in Panama this January & February. For what I think is a pretty stupid reason on their part, it’s not going to work out. :(
I’m still interested in volunteering abroad during that time, but now I need to pick somewhere else. It’s a shame, because I really liked both this organisation and the area a lot.

I’m considering two paths for the next year, and one of them involves volunteering overseas for a couple of months. We’ll see how it plays out.

Today was my first day at the shelter. I told them I wanted to work with dogs and they stuck me with cats all day. Also, someone rather insultingly asked me what I was in trouble for, as though the only reason I could possibly be volunteering was because it was assigned as a punishment and not because I actually wanted to.
So already I can’t go next weekend because I have a work event, but I’m not really inspired to go back ever again. Maybe I’ll switch to the Saturday evening shift and see if that goes better (i.e., if the people there during that time suck less).

So I just called the local animal shelter about volunteering, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I need to stop by to actually talk to them in person and sign a waiver and such, but I’m glad I finally got around to doing this. They said they really need help on Saturday mornings which works fine for me. I’m only working 3 days a week currently so I figure I have plenty of time to stop in at least once a week to help walk the dogs and clean up.