Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How has volunteering helped you grow?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 136 posts

Re: Ask HN: How has volunteering helped you grow?

#121

Post by mattparlane »

eevilspock wrote: post #61
mattparlane wrote: post #4

I'm from New Zealand and I'm currently living in Thailand volunteering for an anti human trafficking organisation, rescuing children from the sex trade. I was thrown in the deep end and had to quickly become a Salesforce administrator and developer, I'm now running two Salesforce orgs, as well as all the other stuff we have going on. I've found it an amazing exercise -- I've grown in patience, understanding of other…

Working to stop human trafficking, especially of children, is on top of my list of things I'd want to work on. Can you provide more information about this org, and how effective they are? What kind of roles are available. I'm natural talents are technology and working with children (I've worked in preschools).

The org is called Destiny Rescue -- https://www.destinyrescue.org/

We've rescued just over 2,000 children since we first started in 2011. I've been involved for about a year now. There are all sorts of roles available, have a look at the positions on the site.

Re: Ask HN: How has volunteering helped you grow?

#122

Post by bbody »

I volunteered overseas in a developing country as an IT consultant. I was responsible for building a new website for a school, looking at their IT costs (I was able to stop 50% of costs by removing unused services) and training of staff.

It was an amazing experience which allowed me to learn a lot. I grew a lot as a person, but I noticed two areas professionally/semi-professionally grow. One was that I noticed was outgoingness, I become a lot more outgoing because of my experience and better at socializing. The other area was being in an environment with severe limitations on bandwidth and availability, taught me to take a lot of problems like page size, etc. seriously.

Re: Ask HN: How has volunteering helped you grow?

#123

Post by Dowwie »

tl;dr: I took a month leave of absence without pay from a highly coveted position in a competitive workplace to volunteer in Louisiana for the American Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina, in 2005. I risked a hard-earned position in the company to do what I felt was the right thing. To this day, it remains one of the most important decisions of my life that I've grown from ever since.

In 2005, I was two years into my career from university as a programmer in a highly coveted position for a company, in the American northeast, that was at its peak. something profound happened that began a new.. dimension.. in my life that hadn't existed before but since defines an important part of who I am today: Hurricane Katrina devastated the American gulf coast. I worked incredibly hard to earn my position in the company and dedicated myself entirely to my career. Yet, the country was dealing with a major catastrophe and I felt that I could contribute in a positive way to the effort if I were to get involved. I could have easily donated but chose not to. Donating felt like an excuse not to do something more meaningful. Instead, I decided to volunteer for the American Red Cross.

This is a long story that isn't suited for a HN comment but is one I've wanted to share for a long time. If anyone would like to read this story, please let me know as it will give me the incentive to finally blog it.

Re: Ask HN: How has volunteering helped you grow?

#124

Post by cdubzzz »

inaglasshouse wrote: post #59
cdubzzz wrote: post #17

I did Peace Corps (US overseas volunteer program) a few years ago in my mid-20s. I spent three and a half years living and working in Burkina Faso in West Africa. I was teaching basic computing (think kids who have never touched a computer) and training other (Burkinabe) teachers to do the same. I helped to build two computer labs using funding from various French groups and trained one teacher intensely to the point…

Can you elaborate on why you're not sure on giving the recommendation to programs like the Peace Corps?

Apologies for the delay getting back. I started to respond to this a couple of times yesterday but it's kind of tough to answer and I kept getting sidetracked.

Basically, I feel like my time in Peace Corps did more for me than for the people I was there to help. I struggle with that a bit and it makes me wonder if the PC approach is truly valuable.

On the plus side, I introduced hundreds of kids to computers, provided more advanced training to 50+ adult professors and left at least one person with the necessary tools to run a computer literacy class. I did the most in my third year (an extension of the normal two year stay) largely because I finally had a decent grasp on the culture and understanding of how to do things in a more sustainable way. In fact, my decision to extend was mostly because I felt like I hadn't really done "enough".

But even that felt like so little in the end. I remember at one point discussing with PC leadership in Burkina implementing a program to teach IT to university students training to be teachers and when I think back I really wish we could've worked that out. Unfortunately it never came to fruition and I heard a few years ago that PC Burkina shut down the whole IT program. Likely many of the labs we maintained and lesson plans we built are collecting dust (we were only the second wave of IT volunteers at the time).

PC is very different from country to country and it seems like kind of crap shoot whether or not one can really have a sustainable impact on anything. PC provides a very good structure for the volunteer, but it is ultimately all on the volunteer to figure out how to execute programs. This can be absolutely great for some people and terrible for others. I fell somewhere in the middle and knew volunteers everywhere in between.

Without really knowing a person (and other country PC programs) it's difficult for me to decide how to judge the overall program and mission.

Re: Ask HN: How has volunteering helped you grow?

#125

Post by tetraodonpuffer »

mailshanx wrote: post #90
tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #20

I spent about 3 years volunteering at a mentally disabled people charity: its mission was to try and help through sports, basically leading workouts at different levels in a large gym in the winter, and at a track & field track in the summer, in order to help them burn some energy and feel better in general. It gave me a much stronger appreciation from having been lucky enough to be born without genetic impairments,…

Thanks for taking the time to describe your experiences, i found them very touching to read. It reminded me of my own recent volunteering experiences, which also happen to be with disabled children.

no problem and thanks for your volunteering!

Re: Ask HN: How has volunteering helped you grow?

#126

Post by ethbro »

wskemper wrote: post #21

Until recently, I volunteered as a coach for my local school district's Science Olympiad, in the middle school division. My first year they asked me to work with one of the aviation events. I'd never really had an interest in flight, and certainly not to the extent that I could teach others about it. First lesson: middle schoolers (think 11 - 14 years old) will test your patience in new and completely unimagined ways…

> the best I could do was make a welcoming and safe environment for them. That has never really sat well with me

As a child of a kindergarten teacher, this is the constant truth that both breaks every teacher's heart and motivates them to try harder every day.

Title I schools are tougher. Kids who get themselves up and to school, if they come at all. Kids without access to clean clothes. Kids who don't have access to a solid meal outside of school breakfast / lunches.

I can't find a link offhand, but I know I read that some school districts around the country are beginning to co-locate social service points of presence in community schools to good effect.

Re: Ask HN: How has volunteering helped you grow?

#127

Post by aggie »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #72

I'm a search and rescue volunteer for Nevada County, near Tahoe, and I love the shit out of it. I've been fairly active in my community in one way or another, mostly because it's a good way to meet good people and to offset the regular disheartening misery of online interaction, but search and rescue people are some of the best folks I've ever met. Nevada County does an excellent job of training its SAR members and i…

Is this something that would be compatible with a typical 9-5 job? Sounds like you need to be somewhat on-call. Can you be a weekend on-call volunteer?

Re: Ask HN: How has volunteering helped you grow?

#128

Post by thaumaturgy »

aggie wrote: post #127
thaumaturgy wrote: post #72

I'm a search and rescue volunteer for Nevada County, near Tahoe, and I love the shit out of it. I've been fairly active in my community in one way or another, mostly because it's a good way to meet good people and to offset the regular disheartening misery of online interaction, but search and rescue people are some of the best folks I've ever met. Nevada County does an excellent job of training its SAR members and i…

Is this something that would be compatible with a typical 9-5 job? Sounds like you need to be somewhat on-call. Can you be a weekend on-call volunteer?

You can, and a lot of folks do just that. It can be exhausting though -- put in a full work week, then put in 12 hours on a weekend call-out (12 hours is not atypical for larger searches, depending on your area), then back to work again.

Some employers are good about allowing time for this sort of thing. I recently sold my business and went back to a part-time grownup job. I can generally run off to a search as long as I clear it with my supervisor and make up my time later.

Re: Ask HN: How has volunteering helped you grow?

#129

Post by siegel »

I spent time volunteering at a community service organization in San Jose, California, specifically focusing my time on their rental assistance program for local low income residents. The gist of the program was providing assistance with one month's rent to people who encountered some sort of emergency that would otherwise have left them homeless. My responsibilities included meeting with applicants for the program, understanding their emergency, working through a monthly budget with them to ensure they could pay their rent going forward, and verifying their story.

Having grown up in an upper-middle class family, I gained a whole different perspective on the struggles people face making ends meet. I've always been politically liberal, but my ability to empathize was categorically different after spending time volunteering at this organization.

Equally important, though related, was getting a better understanding of the needs of people in my local community.

I raise this issue here because many people on this site are transplants to tech hubs throughout the U.S. and worldwide and we often live in our little bubbles in our respective communities. I cannot stress enough the importance for all of us to learn about the communities in which we live, outside of our little bubbles, and offer our talents to improve the lives of residents of our local areas and make these communities better places to live.

Re: Ask HN: How has volunteering helped you grow?

#130

Post by gopalakrishnans »

marmshallow wrote: post #117
gopalakrishnans wrote: post #92

I helped file taxes during the tax season here in the US, for the past four months. It was specifically targeted towards low income families. I was definitely able to learn some of the economic effects of the current healthcare system, especially from the penalties. It was definitely out of my bubble, and wouldn't have known a lot about how many ways the low income families are trying to earn to make ends meet, even…

How can I find a similar type of volunteering effort in my area?

There are a few organizations which do this, including United Way, Goodwill. I did this through United Way. Here is the link to find volunteering opportunities near your area, http://www.unitedway.org/get-involved/volunteer
Post reply on HN