Journey of Hearts 

To give without any reward,   or any notice,   has a special quality of its own.    Anne Morrow Lindberg

National Volunteer Week - April 18-24, 1999

In honor of National Volunteer Week, we have created a separtate section on the Emergency Pick-Me-Up page recognizing Voluntering as a Way of Coping. This section is a collection of resources and projects to help provide information for where to get started finding places to volunteer. This listing is not intended to be comprehensive, rather to serve as a spring-board for a place to start looking for volunteer opportunities. There is a wide range of volunteer needs within the Internet Community, including service opportunities for the home-bound, disabled, physically-challenged, or aging which did not exist even a few years ago.

National Volunteer Week is sponsored by the Points of Light Foundation to spread the word and help involve more citizens across the country in meaningful service. The theme for the National Volunteer Week  1999 is "Volunteers Light the Way," borrowing from The Starfish Story. When I first read this story, I was struck by the message, as those coordinating the National Volunteer Week. This story underscores the reason why many of us continue to try and make a differenceand is a wonderful example of how one person can make a difference.
http://www.pointsoflight.org/volunteerweek/default.html
The organizers of the National Volunteer Week have complied a list of a variety of organizations and resources for getting started on volunteering.
http://www.pointsoflight.org/volunteerweek/nvw_links.html

Points of Light Foundation
 

POINTS OF LIGHT [volunteers]are the souls of America.   They are people who reach beyond themselves to the lives of those in need, bring hope and opportunity, care and friendship.  President George Bush

• How To Connect With Others Through Service - Connecting through voluntter service is a powerful tool for bringing people together and solving many of the problems that face our different communities. This link provides a listing of suggestions for ways to get started.
• How you can Mentor - A mentor is any caring adult who makes an active, positive contribution to the life of a child who is not his or her own.
• Volunteer and Get Connected - Provides resources, including a national map, for finding a Volunteer Center near by and starting to connect through service in the community.

Make a Difference Day Saturday, Oct 23, 1999

Make a Difference Day was created in 1992 by by USA WEEKEND. It is the largest national day of helping others, is sponsored by USA WEEKEND and its over 500 carrier newspapers. This National Day of Doing good was created to encourage Americans to spend on day making a difference.  Millions of Americans in a variety of different places, volunteering with numerous diverse causes have participated during the 8 years of making a difference. In addition to encouraging people to volunteer, Make a Difference Day has funneled $2.5 million into charity efforts as awards so that different worthy projects can continue.
The Make a Difference Day website provides entry forms to enter your project, along with a listing of what other people have done, and even an Idea Generator for those having problems coming up with ideas. By answering three questions, the Idea Generator will help with suggestions for project ideas in your community, or perhaps help you develop you own unique idea.
All Americans are invited to spend all or part of the 9th Annual Make a Difference Day on Saturday October 23, 1999. Remember it only takes one person to make a difference in your community.
 http://www.usaweekend.com/diffday/

VolunteerMatch - VolunteerMatch uses the power of the Internet to help individuals nationwide find volunteer opportunities posted by local nonprofit and public sector organizations. In partnership with thousands of local non-profit organizations, VolunteerMatch has created the most comprehensive and up to date databae of volunteer opportunities. You can search thousands of volunteer opportunities by zip code, category and date and resigster via e-mail. http://www.volunteermatch.org/
From The Teenager's Guide to the Real World - 20 Ways for Teenagers to Help Other People by Volunteering  This on-line resource provides a listing of ideas targeting teenagers, recognizing that it is often difficult to find a volunteer position that fits with a person's personality. This article provides a list of different ideas and different possibilities. They recommend looking in the local area until you can find the volunteer position that works best.
http://www.bygpub.com/books/tg2rw/volunteer.htm
SERVEnet - SERVEnet is a program of Youth Service America to be a tool for the volunteer and service community. Their website offers information for the service and volunteer fields, bringing together thousands of volunteers and community organizations online. Organizations can post volunteer opportunities for potential volunteers, and volunteers can locate opportunities by their zip code. The SERVEnet web site is designed to accomplish three basic things:
• To encourage more citizens to become actively engaged in their communities by volunteering;
• To provide volunteer-based nonprofit organizations the best resources available to them in a quick and easy manner; and,
• To match the skills, experience, and enthusiasm of dedicated volunteers with nonprofit organizations who need their participation
http://www.servenet.org/

With VirtualVolunteering you can volunteer from "virtually" anywhere using your computer. We have included several organizations that can help to match computer volunteers with existing projects.

VirtualVolunteering - VirtualVolunteering was created to encourage and assist in the development of volunteer activities that can occur via the Internet. VirtualVounteering allows anyone to contibute time and expertise to not-for-profit organizations, schools, government offices and other agencies that utilize volunteers, without leaving home or the office. It is an ideal situations for people to volunteer for opportunities that they can complete from home or work computers, because of time constraints, disabilities or home obligations which prevents them from volunteering for on-site projects. With VirtualVolunteering expanding the horizons for volunteer areas, potentially more people are able to get involved than ever before. This type of on-line volunteering helps agencies to further cultivate community support and augment existing volunteer program benefits.
http://www.impactonline.org/vv/
Catch the Spirit - From CyberStory a web site devoted to the health, happiness and spiritual well being of everyone on this planet. Their mission is tocreate a website that will promote and be a place to share uplifting, feel-good stories designed to bring a smile to your face, inspire you, help you out of a difficulty, offer a new perspective and most of all get you thinking about how you can make a difference in someone's life.
Their Catch the Spirit section is devoted to the concept that the spirit of giving is alive and well through charities and encourages people to "catch the spirit of some wonderul organizations and the people whose lives they've helped in true stories." Sections include Animal, Children's, Educational,
Health, Human Service, and Women's Charities as well as International Relief Groups.
http://www.cyberstory.com/CyberStoryCharities/CatchTheSpirit.html
SERVEnet - SERVEnet is a program of Youth Service America to be a tool for the volunteer and service community. Their website offers information for the service and volunteer fields, bringing together thousands of volunteers and community organizations online. Organizations can post volunteer opportunities for potential volunteers, and volunteers can locate opportunities by their zip code. The SERVEnet web site is designed to accomplish three basic things:
• To encourage more citizens to become actively engaged in their communities by volunteering;
• To provide volunteer-based nonprofit organizations the best resources available to them in a quick and easy manner; and,
• To match the skills, experience, and enthusiasm of dedicated volunteers with nonprofit organizations who need their participation
http://www.servenet.org/

What better way of helping the community and helping your self by exercising and raising money for a variety of worthy causes. If you can't run, you can walk, if you can't walk you can wheel, or sponsor someone who can. 
Walking.miningco.com - From the Mining Company's Walking Guide Wendy Bumgardner provides a comprehensive listing of a variety of walking and running events.
For a listing of North America events - Non-Competitive Walks, Racewalking, Run/Walk, and Marathons and Relays - http://walking.miningco.com/msubcal.htm?COB=home&PID=
For an international listing of events -
http://walking.miningco.com/msubint.htm?pid=2816&cob=home
The Runner's Schedule - Their web site offers a listing of a variety of races, in North America and International.
http://www.theschedule.com/

 In creating this section on Volunteerism, I discovered a wonderful connection to a community of volunteers within a medium that I had not realized existed--those out there knitting, crochetting, quilting and sewing--creating their beautiful works of art so that others might be helped. There were so many, that we created a separate page for many of the different Volunteer projects for crafters of all types to help many worthy causes for children, adults, elderly, homeless and even animals.