People need to volunteer anywhere and everywhere. Volunteering benefits you in so many ways including feeling fulfillment, connections, and mental health by feeling better about yourself.
People in counties and neighborhoods aren’t connecting and spending time with their communities. It seems as if people don’t interact with people around them, causing them to miss out on opportunities to make a difference in their community. One way volunteering benefits you is through the community. If you start socializing with people around you, you can interact and get to know them. It can be difficult to reach out and say “hello,” but helping to volunteer and communicating can make humans feel accomplished knowing they have done good and helped.
If people see someone doing a good deed, they may want to do it as well. Feeling a sense of involvement, knowing you’ve helped out can have a great effect on people. Even volunteering as a group can open help humans up to the sense of “we are in this together” or “you’re not alone” with a sense of support, and communication. Volunteering can be emotional seeing how you can make an impact on the world and help just one person change their life. Seeing the progress you made during volunteering can bring such joy and make you feel really great about yourself.
For me, volunteering comes really easy, and I love helping out. I’ve volunteered over 100 hours over the past couple of years, cleaning up trash, helping out in food pantries, sorting clothes for clothing drives, working in elementaries, and even working at concessions stands. Volunteering has impacted my life seeing how I can help others just by giving up a few hours of my time. One thing that really changed my life was the workers I volunteered with. They were always so thankful for help and the nicest people with amazing stories to tell. You never know, you could get some important advice for your life, or even give someone else some advice.
While saying people need to volunteer, many are still disagreeing that they have no time. Yes, it’s hard to fit something into a schedule that doesn’t benefit us the way we want it to, but it’s important to the world. Volunteering can benefit other things as well as humans. When volunteering, what do you look to do in the community? Bowling Green offers many volunteer places including helping the environment, food pantries, helping out in nursing homes, donating blood, and so many more! There is always an opportunity to get out there and help your community.
If we humans volunteer in the environment more, not only are we gaining better mental health, but we are also creating a cleaner and safer place for humans to live. From the article Spending Just 20 Minutes in a Park Makes You Happier. Here’s What Else Being Outside Can Do for Your Health states “For many people in the study, simply being in green space seems to be enough to spark a change”. This being said, being outside gives you Vitamin D from the sun, fresh air, and a peaceful mind, so volunteering in the environment can not only benefit you but others as well. This sentence tells us that maybe being outside can help us want to do better, to volunteer, to help clean up the Earth. By volunteering to clean the environment, you are getting nutrients you need, and even feeling a sense of peace when being outside in the world.
Volunteering needs to happen. Volunteering is important. Volunteering changes lives, not only your own but others. Reach out and find a place to spend your time, it will be worth it and change your life. And who knows, if you volunteer, you might even inspire others to do the same.
Skylar Hogan
Bowling Green
