Worth Every moment

Why volunteer?

…it’s useful. I volunteer a lot!

One of my favorite activities is working when the motivation is support for the community and engagement for artistic events.

People who volunteer are dedicated and passionate about what they do.

Skills learnt while volunteering come in handy in the professional world. As you pick up tasks that are necessary, without commercial intent, you remain open to empathy. This freedom of choice encourages learning in an organic way.

It is also a natural way find out how an organization works and get to know its culture. Sometimes it’s an entrance into a community that is formally inaccessible.

No arts without it

Volunteering is not only fun – it is necessary in the arts! Many arts institutions and non-profits can only function, because of the support of volunteers.

 

join in!

Wassenaar, the Netherlands.

Every Saturday morning a group of local residents meet to pick up stray trash: plastic bottles, cans, cigarette ends, candy wrappers, face masks, wheel rims – you name it! – from the streets, the parks and sometimes the beach.

Meet us in the center, or pick up a grabber stick, bin bag and help keep your own neighborhood clean. Like plogging (jogging while picking up trash), this activity gets you outside for an hour and you feel good afterwards. 

award

Wassenaar, the Netherlands.

In 2020, at the begin of the Covid-19 pandemic, a group of volunteers who never met sewed disposable cotton masks for staff working in elderly and care homes. Never before had there been such a sudden need for masks, and they were scarce.

I joined the group. We sewed over 800 masks at home and handed them over to grateful carers. For this action, our group was given the Wassenaar “volunteer activity of the year 2020” award.