Volunteers. From a Red Cross disaster response to the monthly Brown Bag food distribution at the local senior center, it’s often a dedicated army of everyday men and women who make so many of the programs and services we rely on run smoothly.
There’s no question that the past two years of COVID-19 have put a crimp in the pool of people volunteering their time and talents. But it hasn’t reduced the need, and as life begins to return to some semblance of normal, opportunities will be opening for in-person – and in some cases virtual – volunteering.
And in the month of February, there’s no better time to start thinking about sharing your time and talents with your community – it’s a special kind of love.
According to the website Helpguide.org, volunteering does more than aid your community. It’s good for you and your health as well.
“Volunteering can help you make friends, learn new skills, advance your career and even feel happier,” according to the websites’ take on the well-being boost this kind of giving-of-self can provide. “Giving to others can also help protect your mental and physical health. It can reduce stress, combat depression, keep you mentally stimulated, and provide a sense of purpose.”
Mary Zajac is an example of how signing up can lead to something more. She started reading for Valley Eye Radio in March of 2015, and now works part-time for the nonprofit. Her husband and son now also volunteer, making it a family affair.
“The state had program called “Serve Your State” with employees responding as volunteers. They would allow us a day a month that we could work as a volunteer,” Zajac, who worked for the Department of Unemployment in 2015, explained. “My girlfriend had given me a card for Valley Eye Radio – at the time it was called the radio reading service. I called, got [ Executive Director] Barbara [Loh], and talked about volunteering.”
It was a perfect fit for Zajac, who had recently trained for a side career as a voice actor, and she began reading local newspapers and other publications for the programming broadcast to individuals who cannot read printed material themselves.
In 2016 the Springfield Unemployment office closed, but Zajac said she stayed with Valley Eye Radio as a volunteer. In a short time, she was also asked if she might work a few hours a week as an administrative assistant for the nonprofit.
Then, as she said “COVID [-19] came in [March of 2020] and things got blown out the window. “People were not going into the studio, my husband was immunocompromised – he had had a liver transplant” and Zajac said she, like so many other volunteers “didn’t want to go in and be around people.”
With a small home studio her husband had built for her voice actor business, Zajac easily swapped over to creating programming from home, and continues to do so.
Harold Anderson, programming coordinator for Valley Eye Radio, said Zajac isn’t alone in volunteering from home during the pandemic.
“When COVID-19 hit, just myself and the executive director would come in periodically. All the readers stayed home and we switched over to remote production,” Anderson said, adding that a call for volunteers helped swell the rank of readers from 47 to “over 120.”
He noted there’s been a “wide variety of technical expertise” and equipment that volunteers use to produce the nonprofit’s programming from home –“very few are professional readers, our focus is we are real people talking with real people” – but learning how to navigate a remote system and the associated technology has been a boon. It’s allowed Valley Eye Radio, he said, to not only to attract volunteers from a wider area – “we have readers up in Greenfield, in Amherst, one who lives somewhere near Shelburne Falls … some of them I’ve never even met” – but to also re-imagine how it delivers programming. Now, he said, clients can hear programs on Valley Eye’s website, through cable access channels, using a smart speaker, by telephone or through the special VER radio receivers the service has always offered.
“There is no way this would exist without our volunteers,” Anderson said adding that the nonprofit always has opening for interested readers “We are so grateful for what they are able to do for us.”
Valley Eye Radio isn’t the only place where someone with a love of the written word can make a difference. Link to Libraries is another program where reading – this time to children –- can make a difference in your community.
“Oh, if I could volunteer read [again] I would do it – it’s the most rewarding experience,” said Laurie Flynn, current CEO and president Link to Libraries, who started out as a volunteer reader. “I have my volunteer readers come back – and I feel the same way – we get more out of it than the kids do.”
The 15-year-old nonprofit provides monthly volunteer readers to elementary classrooms around the region and gives students a free book to take home to start a personal library. And though COVID-19 has reduced classroom work, it doesn’t mean the nonprofit isn’t looking for help.
Beyond readers, Flynn said Link to Libraries relies on volunteers for other jobs, such as sorting book donations and arranging pickups by schools where readers are scheduled to visit.
“With Link to Libraries you can get involved as little or as much as you want – there’s something that fits every size volunteer,” Flynn said.
“We are blessed. We have people who have been with this organization from 15 years ago when it was founded – people passionate about reading and education,” Flynn added. “A lot of friendships have been made through Link, which is wonderful.”
Though both Valley Eye Radio (https://valleyeyeradio.org/get-involved.html) and Link to Libraries( https://www.linktolibraries.org/volunteers/become-a-volunteer) are always looking for volunteers, there are many local nonprofits also in need of help. The website Volunteer Match (https://www.volunteermatch.org/) is a great place to start. Enter your location and search by interests and causes, your talents and skills, and more. The website will provide a listing of local volunteer opportunities that best fit what you are looking for.
