Do you volunteer?
It could be for your daughter’s sports team. Or for your local community centre or food bank. Or for your favourite charity. Or for your church, temple, synagogue or mosque.
Or, especially during Canada’s federal election, for your preferred political party.
Wherever and for whatever cause you volunteer, you are providing a critical contribution to building our community on the North Shore.
In Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone, the Collapse and Revival of American Community, Putnam lamented the decline of Americans participating in bowling as an example of the broader decline in citizen participation in various activities that build social capital among people. Citizens participating in various social activities fosters relationships that build trust and reciprocity among people, some with whom you may have much in common and others with whom you may not. By engaging with others in social activities, you bond with and create bridges of connection to your neighbours and community members that have many beneficial impacts both personally and collectively.
Putnam’s book was written 25 years ago. Despite the passage of time and its focus on America, Putnam’s message continues to be relevant for Canadians.
Today, we are seeing polarization, growing incivility, individual and group isolation and alienation, loss of public confidence in governments, democracy and social institutions. We are seeing more disengagement from our fellow citizens. These are all symptoms of a society that is fracturing. We know how the digital age and social media can amplify division rather than build respect and trust, especially amongst groups who may see the world differently.
What is an antidote to this destructive social trend? How do we build more social cohesion and social capital to enhance wellbeing in our community?
Volunteering.
The benefits are many.
On a personal level, you create new relationships and friendships that enhance your life. Many volunteers at our organization, North Shore Community Resources, tell me how much they enjoy helping someone in the community on a regular basis. Maybe they drive our clients to a heath appointment, do some food shopping for them, fix a simple plumbing problem or have a regularly scheduled phone call with them just to check in.
Our volunteers tell me that their regular visits have fostered important relationships in the daily lives of both our clients and our volunteers. The efforts of our volunteers are building valuable social capital in the community with every hour they give.
Volunteers also benefit from new experiences and improve specific skills. As a volunteer, you may continue to use knowledge and expertise that you have gained in your professional life which keeps you sharp and informed. A great example of this at North Shore Community Resources is our free tax program where our volunteers with accounting experience offer their tax preparation services to lower income people in our community.
Beyond the personal benefits for the volunteer, there are the obvious benefits for those that we serve. This past year, our tax program resulted in $300,000 in tax refunds to our 750+ clients. In addition, with their taxes filed, our clients become eligible for all sorts of other income and assistance that they wouldn’t otherwise qualify for without a CRA notice of assessment. A shoutout to Ratcliff LLP and QuadReal for supporting NSCR’s tax program.
Benefits from volunteering accrue not only to volunteers and the people who receive services. The whole community benefits. Taking NSCR’s tax program again as an example, ensuring that people with lower income file their tax returns has important poverty reduction and prevention benefits. They are more likely to have stable income thus preventing financial, housing, health or other crises that arise due to poverty. Less poverty means less need for government or not-for-profit assistance to people in crisis or tenuous personal circumstances.
Volunteering also provides important social lubricant for our communities. In a diverse society like ours with people of different backgrounds and different values, we need to find ways to bridge social differences. As volunteers, people come together to help others and in doing so create connections with other volunteers and the people they serve who they may otherwise never have had the opportunity to interact with. It’s so much easier to talk to people with whom you might disagree on some questions in a civil and respectful way if you have a pre-existing relationship through your volunteer efforts.
Ultimately, volunteering is a vital act of civic engagement. Canada’s democratic society is premised on our ability to self-govern. But to be able to self-govern ourselves effectively, citizens must be able to know and relate to their neighbours even when relationships and political choices get sticky.
So, if you volunteer, thank you. You are doing something very important.
If you don’t volunteer, please sign up to do so. You can see a list of volunteer opportunities available on the North Shore through the NSCR website. There are also countless other organizations on the North Shore looking for more volunteer help – survey the landscape and find the one that is the right fit for you.
Volunteering will make a real difference to you personally, the people and organizations you serve and the broader community.
Murray Mollard is the executive director of North Shore Community Resources.
