Feel Like Pitching In?

Today is the first day of National Volunteer Week. National Volunteer Week began in 1974 as way to highlight the importance of actively serving local communities.

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If you are anything like me, volunteering is great, but ‘micro-volunteering’ is more likely what you have time for. I find that between graduate school and full-time work, my free time is very limited. Even with my best prioritizing efforts, time is often one of the major reasons I cannot commit to such events. I imagine most of us are in similar situations when it comes to our availability. However, according to Volunteering In America, Americans spent 8.1 billion hours volunteering in 2011 -- Wowza, right?! That is a serious chunk of time! Unfortunately, their statistics also show that compared to Boomers and Gen X, Millennials volunteered at lower rate.

In order to demonstrate how little time it takes to make a difference, I thought I would pass along these micro-like local volunteer opportunities from the United Way-Twin Cities. Conveniently, this list has several volunteer assignments that only require a few hours of time. If we all micro-give a little more in 2012, I am hopeful our generation will take volunteering cake!