The question I have been asked is do the volunteers of the many holiday parades incur the same health benefits as the volunteers who are engaged full time with groups supporting charities? The answer is that I have yet to find studies or evidence to support this idea.

There is no doubt that the many volunteers for the various parades for so many holidays around the world contribute tons of effort and time to their parade day event. Their passion for the event is intense from my research, so they are focused and driven, just as other main stream civic groups or fraternal groups for their charity.

These temporary volunteers also benefit from the networking aspects noted in earlier posts on this site!

The intense pressure to produce some floats or other group presentations gives people practice in leadership and group organizing as well. Each member for these parades to work needs to subvert their own individuality for the greater performance, just as in many sports. To sum it up, everyone can benefit from the experience, but does it also translate into the health benefits of the group charity supporting volunteers?

It remains to be studied I think whether the health benefits already documented for the charity supporting fraternal, civic, and veterans groups also translates to temporary volunteering opportunities.

American Legion

Memorial Day parades by veterans groups in America which many veteran groups participate in are supported by members such as the American Legion, with the symbol above. Often these members engage in activities all year long and only rise to the public view during the parades. These are the types of volunteers which the health producing benefits have been documented.

Shriners

St. Patrick Day parades are  common in the United States. Very often you find a cooperation between well known fraternal groups to put on the parade. I have personally participated in a few as a member of the Shrine, a subdivision of the Freemasons.

The Roman Catholic fraternal group, The Knights of Columbus in my case was the main sponsor for the parade in the Tidewater area of Virginia. This certainly qualifies its members for the health benefits since they are serving all year long but raising their public awareness on this one day for the documented health benefits of volunteering.

Parades during the American professional football bowl games have short but intense opportunities for volunteers to help with float assemblies, the flowers and other aspects which are so amazing to see on the day the events are held. Other holiday parades also offer opportunities for volunteering on a short term basis. Many parades around the world function much the same way, except many of those have religious overtones attached which are for the most part absent from American holiday parades.

The caption above is from Volterra, a festival parade in Italy associated with a cross bow championship. Brazil also has a famous parade, Carnival. Parades from around the world often function with the participation of volunteers in some way or fashion. Most parades would not be what they are if volunteers did not participate.

Many of these parades in America rely on already established volunteer groups to step in and help with the events.

Knights of Pyhthias

FOE

In the above caption, the Order of the Eastern Star, a group associated with Freemasonry which has both men and women members, the very Christian theme is emphasized.

Church groups, youth groups, and in some cases the fraternal, civic, and veterans groups also volunteer their services. It is natural that a call goes out for temporary volunteers to help with a quick infusion of labor though, and these temporary members are the subject of our question in this post. Do they, even on a temporary basis gain the health benefits associated with those already documented for the main stream groups who focus mainly on supporting charities?

My gut feeling is that it is likely. But until the subject is studied properly, we can only speculate.

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Stress moderation is at the top of the pillars of health care wisdom for the empowered volunteer. You can actually die from stress related effects.

When volunteers think of how to work their time around volunteer projects they don’t automatically think of stress. Their passion for the volunteer group or the charity supported by the group helps them prioritize their emotions and their time management. Simply put, they make it work no matter how much effort it takes to get the job done.

For the empowered volunteer, what is the incentive for someone who is not already involved in the represented group to join, pending their busy, busy, busy schedule? Obviously if they have a passion for the charity they might be persuaded. But what if they are not passionate for the charity? What then? They say that they are too stressed and that they don’t have any time! Then the empowered volunteer needs to refer to the pillars of health wisdom!

The empowered volunteer is all about helping people. That must be the first priority, above all other things.

If you put people first, the other things will find a way to resolve themselves, one way or another. Happy passionate people solve problems and they also brag about the experience. They also have better health, statistically speaking. First, let’s tackle the stress issue and then we will address the other health studies and how they affect our message.

Stress is manageable in our lives. But for those who find themselves under extreme stress they should explore the science discoveries from the power of positivity.

This topic was addressed by Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph. D. in her book, nicely named Positivity! In it she presents credible and robust scientific evidence on how proper meditation helps humans deal with stress. Then she moves on to give concrete examples of how to meditate and other features in order to help drive your health benefits from lowering the effects from stress on your body. She has placed guided meditations and other simple tools on her website, which is very easy to use and worthy of a visit for anyone who would like to feel better in our stressful world. This kind of easy to do it yourself stress modification is why Dr. Fredrickson’s book and website are a pillar of wisdom for the empowered volunteer.

http://www.positivityratio.com/index.php

Once you go to the site, use the tools tab or the take the test tab and see how you are faring on an individual level. With over two decades of research on this subject along with tons of behavioral science supporting data going back several more decades it is worth checking it out and seeing if you can benefit. To be honest, everyone can benefit unless you just don’t want to let it help you. Meditation has been used by many civilizations for thousands of years, from Christians like St. Augustine to Chinese Kung Fu monks.

Never underestimate how you can improve your life with small changes that affect your health in a magnified way beyond the small time and effort you expend.

Decades of data from research into how social status affects your health are also available and helpful for the empowered volunteer to understand for their pillars of health wisdom. Scientists use the term social economic status (SES) for these kinds of studies and conversations about them. SES is in general terms an individual’s social level in society. Usually this is divided into three areas, low or working class, middle class and upper middle class or upper class status levels. Low class is the working people, usually living from pay check to pay check. Poverty level is below this group.

Middle class is the group who was lifted by many factors after WWII, but one of the most controversial was the GI Bill, which allowed many of those returning from the war to attend college and then better their lives with better paying jobs and more upward mobility. In this case, a veterans group was instrumental in helping pass this important piece of legislation, one which in looking back historians and economics agree was a huge success.

Harry W. Colmery, a former national commander of the American Legion and former Republican National Chairman, is credited with drawing up the first draft of the GI Bill.

Some people reading this will be surprised that a former Republican Party National Chairman could have been involved with promoting a middle class path towards education back in the days after WWII. Back then, only the very rich could afford college. But keep in mind, political parties change over time and their policies change over time too.

The GOP today is not your grandfather’s party! The current Republican Party thinking on education is reflective of some of those changes in mindset regarding middle class education at the high school level as well as for higher education and is thus beyond the scope of this post.

SES is very important to the empowered volunteer from the point of those who are least likely to be volunteering and which also can benefit the most from volunteering, health wise.

Upper middle class is more often defined as someone who has physical assets which generate enough income so that if that person suddenly stopped their regular employment they could still live off their passive income. This status level is worthy of achievement and is the focus of another pillar of wisdom, that of wealth which will be addressed in a forthcoming post. For our purposes here, the higher the status the better the likely hood of good health is expected.

Michael Marmot, in his ground breaking book 2004 book, The Status Syndrome, How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity has reviewed and distilled the data results from over three decades of studies in order to write about how we can benefit from this knowledge.

One key to his book was that if someone has little autonomy over their lives, as most working class people find themselves, then they are more likely to have lower health.

This is true for many countries beyond the United States too. It goes further though, for those people reporting “the greater the degree of inequality of material deprivation and of income, the worse the health.” He found that low control over one’s life to be the big central factor that linked everything to health, happiness, etc.

In America’s past labor unions were often the only way for laborers to exert any form of control over their lives. Before the unions formed, safety and other factors we take for granted today were not common in many industries.

For those people then and even today in many industries, having some control over their life could determine their future health. Volunteering is one path towards restoring some form of control over one’s life if it is not found elsewhere. Each person can control how much they volunteer and where, and to what extent for each group they join.

This kind of life control opportunity can help them if they are in a job where they have little or no control over their lives. 

The main thing here is that no matter what your station in life, you can do things to help your health and your mental or emotional wellbeing. The positivity ratio is so simple once you start that you will wonder why you have not heard of it before. I would suggest starting with the guided meditation and then moving on where ever you are comfortable. This tool is absolutely awesome for its potential to help people with high stress jobs.

The health harming aspects attributed to many working class jobs should surprise no one. They have been apparent for generations of American workers. From swing shifts to heated environments too hot to stay in for very long to extended nursing hours for patient coverage. The potential ways to combat the negative effects seem to have escaped the general public’s notice, until now hopefully. Even middle class American’s can use this information to their advantage so that the stress from the job doesn’t inflict further harm to your health.

Knowing the health harming effects of low autonomy is important for the health of employees and management.

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The report shows a list of the 50 worst charities.

Some of these charities seem little more than scams from the audit reports on how the contributions distributed to those in need were unearthed. Many have names which are easily confused with legitimate charities. This type of issue hurts everyone who is trying to help others while running a proper organization with good operating numbers for efficiency.

See the Tamp Bay Times article below for some of the issues.

http://www.tampabay.com/topics/specials/worst-charities.page

Many of the charities on the list investigated for fraud by the paper could be ones supported by volunteer groups who were duped into supporting them. If this happens and you find out that the charity is not functioning up to the standards you expect, you have the right to take the issue before your group for review and if necessary, termination.

Several volunteer groups have been in the news lately for various issues other than this article by the paper. I don’t want to review all of those issues, but one, the Boy Scouts of America has just taken a huge step away from its previous position of not supporting gay leaders or scouts. If I understand correctly, the lift right now is only allowing gay scouts, not scout leaders. In any event, this is a dramatic change of policy which is very likely to influence the future in many ways for them.

For the Boy Scouts, many of the sponsors are Christian Churches who contribute building space, time, money or equipment and often members from their own flock. Many Christian Churches are not in tune with the gay agenda, either for the scouts or for the scout leaders. No matter how this issue sorts itself out, the Boy Scouts of America will be viewed much differently in the future. Whither this change is good or negative will be for history to reflect.

The Susan B. Komen group supporting cancer research has been in the news for its struggle to maintain its famous 3 day walks for a cure in cities where they have historically been successful. This doesn’t make it a bad charity just because it has to refine the process soliciting contributions! Unfortunately this group has recently had political issues where it did not want to support Planned Parenthood with the contributions it had raised, a huge change in policy from the past.

That really unfortunate stand was not viewed by the public as positive and it may still be hurting fund raising. Very strong feelings on both sides of this issue make it volatile and I would encourage the empowered volunteer to say away from commenting on it as he or she attempts to find members for their group. Sometimes groups have to change to stay viable in the public eye.

The point here is that while all legitimate charities are worthy, unfortunately there are way too many in the United States operating under questionable financial arrangements or even fraudulent ones, and you are not obligated to continue servicing them if they are found out to be this way. When too much of the public contributions are not funneled to those in need, it can raise doubt on the validity of the entire group.

Sometimes even the worthy ones end up changing their methods, or their values even when social pressures become too great to bear. 

Groups like the Moose and the Elks have changed their ways to be more in tune with society over the years. They changed for good reasons and maintained their worthiness of purpose.

Sometimes a group must change or become less appealing to the public. One group used to proudly claim that over one million dollars of charitable contributions per day were donated to by it’s members. Dwindling memberships have since narrowed that focused amount to a far smaller one.

Years ago the Freemasons in America endured a huge drop in membership when an event now called the “Morgan Affair” hit the news. Freemasons were accused of abducting and silencing a man who had claimed he was going to reveal their secretes to the public. Unfortunately this silly event was believed by the public and for decades hurt Freemason membership.

                                               ’Worcester Masonic Temple – 7

Every Freemason knows that while the organization as it is today was organized in 1717 it was in 1723 that a book was published revealing all of the so called secretes. Funny, to this day not one of the “secretes” has been in any way modified or refined. So much for secretes that Freemasons would “kill” for, wouldn’t you agree? Today such nonsense from questionable sources would never be able to make the public believe such a lie, but in the early 1800′s things were far harder to communicate and folks believed the worst.

You won’t find a Freemason who believes that the “secretes” make him a mason. He will reply that he was first made a mason in his heart and then in a proper lodge. The secretes are only a focus by ill informed public who want to create tension, usually for their own purposes.

Always do everything you can to be above reproach in your dealings surrounding your group and the charity your group supports. If you do that, everything will work out for the best.

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Power horn replica with Freemason symbols from colonial times

Welcome to the official site of the Empowered Volunteer Rebuilds America!

The purpose of this site is to empower any passionate person who wants to learn how to build or in some cases rebuild memberships to various charitable groups or the groups who support the charities!

It would also help if this person has aspirations of deriving health benefits from his or her actions as well. In other words, by presenting your passion in a positive direction you will get more back in benefits than you put into the effort of helping the charity, according to many studies!

How about that for a change, you can get back more benefits for yourself than the cost of the effort you put into the organization.

To do this the empowered volunteer must be passionate about a specific charity first off. Finding the group who supports that charity or becoming passionate about the group supporting the charity will, studies have shown produce many health benefits for the passionate volunteer. This site will review the many studies and show how the various healthy benefits for the individual who volunteers are produced.

To sum it up, a passionate volunteer can positively impact their own health and happiness with very little money involved and minimal time allocations!

Now just joining a group, putting the membership card in your purse or wallet will NOT produce the health benefits I have been alluding to. You have to do a bit more than that. If you follow the Empowered Volunteer strategy you stand a great chance of maximizing your potential, again according to various studies. There is also the satisfaction of helping to make a worthy charity become better funded by building new members.

What a deal! Just for doing something you want to do anyway, you can increase the likely hood of living longer and in better health while helping your country rebuild its various volunteer infrastructure programs that have seen sharply dropping memberships over the last few decades. Fewer members mean less revenue for the charities they support in the end, so this empowerment can really make a difference in a huge way.

For instance, various civic, fraternal, or veterans groups conduct numerous events throughout their calender year to raise money for the charity they support. Other groups include religious, trade associations, and even children’s groups.

Shriners

An example of a fraternal group who specializes in helping a charity is the Shriners, properly known as Royal Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and their cause is Crippled and Burned Children’s Hospitals better known as Shriner’s Hospitals. Shriners are associated with Freemasonry.

FOE

Another fraternal group is the Fraternal Order of Eagles, and they are a Roman Catholic fraternity. They have become known for their support of the Ten Commandment monuments around court houses.

Knights of Pyhthias

There are many others such as the Fraternal Order of Elks, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pyhthias, Pilot International, Knights of Columbus, and Royal Neighbors of America, to list but a few. All of them need new members.

Fraternal groups differ from civic groups in a few ways, but one of the main ways is in how they control their membership. Fraternal groups are specific and closed, often requiring a vote by the existing membership via the famous “black ball” in order to gain membership. Note, in most instances the black ball is really shaped like a cube!

Lions Club

Civic groups on the other hand are not closed and are for the most part open to all members. Examples of well known civic groups include Lions Club International, United Methodist Women, Soroptimist International, Rotary International, United Way, Optimist International,and many others.

American Legion

Examples of veterans groups would include American Legion, Veterans Of Foreign Wars of the United States, Catholic War Veterans, National Association of Black Veterans, Navy Mutual Aid Association, and the Fleet Reserve Association. There are many more veterans groups too.

The aim of this site is to educate an individual on how to help a group who they are passionate about so that a charity will end up benefiting from more individuals joining and hopefully helping their cause. As an empowered volunteer does this they also accumulate real time individual health benefits which are both measurable and detectable in studies. Social benefits are also incurred according to many studies.

This is truly one of life’s win-win situations! One person, with the proper leverage as an empowered volunteer can make a huge impact on a group who in turn supports a charity, thus really magnifying their presence far beyond just joining and being one cog in a large wheel. That is the real impact one person, an empowered volunteer can and should have. Want to be an empowered volunteer?

With the proper mindset and a bit of training most people will find they can be an empowered volunteer.

Ready to find out the particulars? Let’s get rolling!

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