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.

Share on Tumblr

College students wishful image of college experience

College students dream of their efforts at grades resulting in a work place in the real world where they are respected, wanted, and better treated than most find their college experience to be in real life. Unfortunately, a new poll from the Society of Human Resource Management reflects the perception in the hiring market that college students are NOT ready for work in the real world!

An article from the Kansas City Star and authored by Diane Stafford shows plenty of issues in the perception of the newly graduating college students. To be blunt, the numbers are really difficult and discouraging.

From the report we find English skills are not proficient in the eyes of the hiring managers. My first thought was are they talking in some sort of text lingo? The report did not go that deep, but no student should ever demonstrate their language skills in text talk around any business people who later may be in a position to network on their behalf.

“Forty-nine percent of human resource officials polled by the professional organization said this year’s college graduates lack basic English skills in grammar and spelling. Eighteen percent said the grads come up short in math and computation. Thirteen percent faulted the grads’ spoken English, and 10 percent cited a lack of reading comprehension.”

If that was not bad enough, the survey found that hiring professionals also expressed that their “biggest complaint by hirers was that the graduates lacked “professionalism” or “work ethic,” a deficiency listed by half of those surveyed. Nearly half detected a lack of “business acumen.” as well.

High School image of college experience

Further reading on the poll showed that 20% of hiring professionals see graduates as “under-qualified” for their job openings. This is really hard core real world data that should smack every college student and high school student thinking of college up the side of their heads!

College student on bike with backpack

College students often think they deal with real world reality when they hit campuses every year. The cost of a car may be too much, so a bike may be used to save on gas, if they even have a car for instance! Sitting on the grass singing camp fire songs is something that is rare too on real world campuses. College is competitive and it is a business, from both ends of the experience, the school end and the student end.

Students study in the library

Where is the average college student going to get the skills that the Society of Human Resource Management members see many of them lacking? Well, one place could be as an empowered volunteer if the student has positioned him or herself for that opportunity.

A student could conceivably pull off a spontaneous empowered volunteer crusade, particularly if their results were worthy and verifiable in their past. Usually this would require a past history of success. Hopefully your volunteer track record supports your requests for the opportunity!

The social skills needed to deliver on demand a set number of qualified candidates is something worthy of a resume note, particularly when accompanied with the data support for the effort and the return on investment you produced by taking on the project lead the new members were required for in the first place and seeing that project to a successful conclusion, all with proper data documentation.

The potential to take the summer (if you have it off from classes) to volunteer between your income supporting job requirements and perhaps run a committee with a special project that delivers measurable results would also be a great resume addition. For this kind of opportunity to work, most likely you would have to be already a member of the group and have previously proven to be able to lead the effort, as justified by past successes.

This means that being seen in volunteer circles as a person who can get things done is well worth cultivating. You can’t start too early in this regard, since emotional intelligence or social intelligence are characteristics which are very hard to demonstrate numerically.

Poll showed graduates are more likely to be “tech savvy” over older applicants.

From college applications to resumes, everything goes better with data on it. Data can be demonstrated in many ways, but failure to gather data is one potential deal killing detail that in the business world is unforgivable. Never fail to gather meaningful and pertinent data at every potential chance, you can always condense and edit the data later. Once the data is lost, it is usually not recoverable.

If you can show a trend in growth for building memberships, finishing projects, leading small groups or teams to completion of a special project, or take on a task that no one else wanted and succeed, then you can be one of the graduates who can demonstrate that you have business sense that they are looking according in this poll.

The key is to document things properly and to do so consistently early on in your student life. You can’t have too much data to draw on, and depending on how many different resumes you will have to produce, different data might be needed on different targeted resumes.

College student in lighter moment

A real life example of something the hiring managers might consider worthy would be taking your church group’s initiative to start a new youth camp at a new facility which previously had not existed, with no ready source of funding identified. You conceived the idea and sold the it to the church leaders, successfully promoted and funded it through your social capital sources built over your high school time as well as business sponsors you successfully pitched, and then implemented the structure for the camp to continue into the future, all on a budget. That is a very worthy project if your numbers reflect your story properly!

Business leaders positively favor those who can bring in a project on time which they had to seek donations to fund and then kept to a budget as well.

Make no mistake, leading volunteers is challenging for anyone, but for college students the challenges of leading others who are likely to be older than you are even greater. The social skills needed to stroke the right emotions on each and every member in order to get the desired results are vital to your success and they are very easily transferable to the real world when you interview with a hiring manager who wants demonstrated successes. They will want to know how you got your team motivated and how you kept them on track for an entire summer when most people have other things they would rather be doing.

Be ready to illustrate your success with good answers that reflect team building words, keeping the “I’s” to a minimum.

College student in suit on steps looking for a job

The same poll found that currently hiring managers described as “very difficult” jobs to fill were engineers, computer technicians, programmers, scientists, and skilled trades which are often more on the job training or technical school sourcing rather than requiring college.

STEM Majors 

If you are in a major which is not a STEM type (science, technology, engineering, or math) such as political science, humanities, languages, or perhaps philosophy and you find your resume short on business supporting data points reflected in this poll, consider using the empowered volunteer strategy for some resume muscle building.

Finding jobs today is better conducted when you have an active network that can support you. People who have already worked with you and found your work ethic worthy are much more likely to support your effort to find the underground network of unadvertised jobs too. Way too many of those who go into STEM majors find themselves without the ability to demonstrate their soft skill sets, their social intelligence, or their emotional intelligence data points too.

Everyone needs to improve their soft skills while properly recording and documenting their achievements which demonstrate these skills in abundance for the competitive job market graduates are finding themselves in today.

Empowered volunteers in college can be the cream that rises to the top if they plan accordingly for success by becoming an empowered volunteer, making themselves more ready for the real world.

Share on Tumblr

Man giving a rose to a lady, who accepts it gracefully

Men have given ladies gifts ever since couples have gathered into families, perhaps earlier! In the real world, ladies admire men who can set the gift giving bar high as well. Volunteering is giving of your time and expertise over money, something that is worthy for everyone to do, no matter what your social economic status or political leanings.

Donations are often thought of for charities, with fund raisers common for high profile charities that often as not are sponsored and have high status figures leading the fund raising. This helps the charity and the contributors often see benefits in the area of tax incentives.

At the time of this writing Warren Buffett is offering a free online course, “Giving with a Purpose” with the chance to help him decided how to spend over $100k of his sisters money! That kind of course is a first as far as I can tell.

Bill Gates

Volunteers without vast wealth are simply donating their time more than their money in the real world. They are often not able to donate their money in the sums that would make huge differences in the same way that Bill Gates does with his vast wealth, taking on diseases around the world. So time is traded instead of money. Giving your time instead of giving your money becomes the working class way of staying involved and still making a difference.

Bill Clinton, author of Giving, How each of us can change the world

In his best selling book, Giving, How Each of Us Can Change The World, former U. S. President Bill Clinton makes a very powerful case for how everyone in the world can help improve the world through giving or volunteering of their time or money or a combination of both, regardless of their social economic status.

He talks about the Make-A-Wish foundation volunteers who will “leave you feeling good about yourself”. On the next page of this book he relates about how volunteers built houses to turn over to residents in need for another charity group. The giving can come in many different forms and result in many different methods of helping those in need.

As a high status individual Bill Clinton has certainly provided leadership for giving that is way beyond what the normal man or women could do! He has social capital that most of us could only dream about.

In the real world, we have examples of political rivals who have set aside their differences to work together. Former U. S. President Bush Senior and former President Clinton have set a very high bar for such unified efforts, among them the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund.

Former U.S. President Carter has for years led programs of volunteers for very worthy efforts, with very high public praise for his achievements. He has certainly led by example when it comes to volunteering to make a difference in the real world.

The first U.S. President of the Bush family, George H.W. Bush had his faith based initiatives which resulted in the Points of Light group, a group still operating and helping others. Today he is visiting the White House where President Obama recognized the 5,000th Daily Point of Light Award, which went to a retired farm couple from Iowa.

Giving and volunteering seem to abound in the top levels of American Politics, intersecting with the real world in a very profound way that has resulted in enormous benefits to mankind.

Campaign button for President Ford in 1976

American Presidents have a long tradition of enjoying volunteer groups, with 15 known members taking the first degree and 14 completing the required 3d degree to become Master Masons, the last one being Gerald Ford. Abe Lincoln petitioned but did not go through with the Freemason initiation and Bill Clinton was a member of the youth group of Masons, called the DeMolay named after a historical figure who was burned at the stake by the Inquisition.

Past U. S. Presidents who were involved in other volunteer groups which still operate today were Warren G. Harding, FDR, and Harry Truman who all belonged to the Masons as well as the Elks, the Moose, and the Odd Fellows!

That is a bunch of volunteering over time. It is worthy to note that these groups all share some common values, and they were at one time known to also have some initiation similarities. Today they mostly share a common membership belief in a Supreme Being along with what today we would call family values in various forms.

Teddy Roosevelt in Yellowstone

Teddy Roosevelt, our 26th U.S. President had a love of volunteering it seems, with his many accomplishments including the founding of the NCAA, his support for various conservation efforts which helped establish our National Parks, his many public service posts, and of course his most famous volunteer effort historically was his inclusion in the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, a portion of which he later led and was nick named, the “Rough Riders”. It’s hard to be more into giving of time or money than this individual, considering his impact on the future of our National Parks particularly.

Rough Riders photo

Of course, Teddy Roosevelt volunteered to be President so frequently that he was later the focus of legislation to limit the terms a person can serve for the U. S. Presidency! You can perhaps give a bit too much it seems.

Former President Bill Clinton wrote a whole book on giving as we noted above, with over 200 pages of examples and information on how individuals and groups can make a difference in today’s world. This post is not for book reviewing, but I would say that the book is a worthy start for those wanting to become an empowered volunteer or to rebuild America while seeking their potential for giving in today’s real world, no matter if you are unknown or famous.

Share on Tumblr

                         Checking out the fishing action roadside from the motor home.

After a successful career and then retirement, is there another ladder to climb for volunteering?

The answer is, only if you want to climb that ladder. Volunteering at any age is worthy and even brings health benefits. See my other posts on the subject of health, positivity, connectivity, and ways to broaden one’s mind, using meditation. However, health aside volunteering has many other benefits for both sides of the volunteer equation which in these days of declining services and opportunities are more in need than every before.

AARP, the largest and probably the most recognized of the retirement age advocacy groups in the United States also provides several paths and steps for those who want to volunteer. This group is well organized and very focused on the welfare of the retired membership.

http://www.aarp.org/giving-back/

Freemasons, the largest and oldest fraternal organization in the world are another group where men of all ages are welcome to join and where volunteering is highly encouraged. Freemasons only accept men who believe in a supreme being, are of legal age, free of criminal past, well respected in the community, and who are willing to pass through the three degrees of initiation. Most men who join the Masons have been volunteers for many years in their churches or other well known groups. Masons have a ladder of success in the form of the progression for the governing of the lodge as well, though many members never care to engage in that part of the Masonic experience.

http://askafreemason.org/

Another group who allow both men and women and is associated with Freemasonry would be the Eastern Star. This group’s purpose is to provide membership association as well as charitable work for its focus. They operate independently from the Freemasons, with the only requirement that a belief in a supreme being and a focus on Christianity through the story of the  star of Bethlehem.

http://www.easternstar.org/

Another group of Freemasonry related members are the Shriners. One group is men only and one group is ladies only. Today the requirement to join the Shiriners is for the men to be a Mason in good standing. For the ladies, being related to a Mason in good standing is required, along with the usual belief for both groups that you believe in a supreme being and be of good character. Both groups volunteer extensively for charities as well as provide funds for their respective area Shriner’s Crippled and Burn Hospitals. Many retirement age ladies and men have been in these two groups for years but with retirement they fully engage their time and effort for the good causes these groups support, volunteering in ways too numerous to cover.

http://www.shrinersinternational.org/Shriners.aspx

http://www.shrinersinternational.org/en/Shriners/Organization/NewFirstLady.aspx

Habitat for Humanity is another group with many opportunities for retired volunteers. They are faith based but help those in need regardless of their religious affiliation or other characteristics. The help ranges from pure labor to organizational type positions and everything in between for most of the local groups, along with fund raising or donation solicitations.

http://www.habitat.org/where-we-build

                                                        USO, December 1941

Another group with opportunities for retired volunteers is the many veterans groups, not all of which require prior service to become involved. The USO is one of these groups that doesn’t require prior service for volunteering.

http://www.uso.org/ways-to-volunteer.aspx

For prior service members, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars offer many outstanding opportunities for volunteering wither retired or not.

http://www.legion.org/volunteers

http://www.vfw.org/Community/Get-Involved/

One more is the Disabled American Veterans, which runs collection centers where the proceeds go to helping disabled veterans.

http://www.dav.org/volunteers/Opportunities.aspx?gclid=CJPdg5y_-LcCFVMV7AodDUsAlQ

A different focus for helping children is the Senior Corps. This aligns people 55 and older with youth in need of mentoring and other services.

http://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/senior-corps

Many local opportunities for youth engagement can be found at schools too, with after school programs for tutoring or coaching opportunities.

The American Red Cross is another group that has well thought out programs aimed at those over 50 who can focus specialties on disaster relief when needed. Go to their website for the details.

http://www.crossculturalsolutions.org/retired-volunteer-abroad-programs?siteID=Google_Grants_retired_volunteer&gclid=CLS8pPjA-LcCFQho7Aodm0EAbQ

This short and very incomplete list of volunteer friendly groups for older citizens is reflective of not only the need for elderly involvement but the abundant benefits gained by both the volunteers and those on the receiving end.

Life’s steps as we age provides many ladders for us to climb and then move onto another portion of our life experience, one where retirement age eventually makes all of us cross the age of elibibility for AARP, which is technically 50 but most of the groups providing services for AARP don’t activate their participation until 55. 

The opportunities to volunteer through faith based groups abounds, secular groups who don’t specialize in spreading the mostly Christian message but simply help whoever, where ever the needs is found, and even those who are very focused on helping one select group in need such as Special Olympics.

http://www.specialolympics.org/volunteers.aspx

Many of the posts I have provided here on this site already detail the health benefits of networking, social connectivity, positivity, and how face-to-face interactions rather than internet networking can provide enormous life prolonging human benefits to the volunteer.

These attributes associated with volunteering should be included in the retirement planning of every able bodied retired volunteer who wants to enrich their life. 

With the potential for many soon to retire Americans seeing their wealth reduced in the last few years this is one area where a fixed income volunteer can still reap the rewards of a vital life without impacting their monthly budget.

Share on Tumblr

Freemasons, who started out building Christian churches

The purpose of this site is to arm individuals with the knowledge and strategy for success in volunteering and rebuilding various groups who support charities, thus in the process as more  and more people do this we will collectively rebuild America! Just as the Freemasons are the inheritors of a past in building the great Christian churches we now take for granted, so too are America’s great volunteer groups showing signs of being taken for granted. The Empowered Volunteers can be the builders for these great American assets before we lose something too big for words when you consider all the contributions they have made over our history.

Lofty purpose, tons of work by a huge number of people needed to pull it off. Every person counts, even if you don’t want to become an empowered volunteer. Join for selfish reasons and then as time goes on you’re likely to become much more open to the real values of the group and the charity you are supporting. When you combine passion with networking with face to face interactions with other humans you can’t help but see health improvements, according to many studies over many years.

Harvard professor Robert D. Putnam, in his book “Bowling Alone” published in 2000 showed on page 303 a Social Capital Index which provided data reflecting that kids watch less TV in high social capital states. As adults and parents, all of us should want to set a better example for our kids. Data analysis like this shows convincingly that there is a link between the way children are raised in different parts of the country and how they act as adults.

This book by Putnam is one of the big factors that encouraged me to start figuring out the empowered volunteer criteria and methodology. If we lose these groups which Putnam says are part of what made America great over our history, we really lose something of our American soul. We don’t have to let these groups die off.

Putnam provided concrete data to show the need for what I had been using as a life strategy most of my life. America’s many civic and fraternal groups are dying in what he claimed left American’s bowling alone, thus the name for his book.

Group with the Optimist Creed

To illustrate the huge issue, I will use numbers from one civic group, but rest assured that the book I wrote in 2006 had population data from many groups which also have seen a decline in memberships just like this one.

Optimists International in 2006 had 123,865 members according to the website at the time. Today the site shows 87,000 members in 2013. That is a huge drop off in members over 7 years, but the cause and need for help has not declined I assure you. Another data point is that in 2006 the number of Optimist Clubs was 3,918, today their site shows 2,900 clubs. This is nearly a drop of a thousand clubs! This group has the famous Optimist Creed, which is well worth a visit to their web site to copy and print out. I recite this creed out loud on a frequent basis as a motivational tool.

Another well known group, Moose International, a fraternal and service group had in 2006 1.5 million members, today their site reflects 800,000 members. In 2006 they had 2,000 lodges and today their site reflects 1,800 lodges. They are still doing a mountain of good work, but with the steady decline of members the amount of help they can provide is a bit harder than when they had 700,000 more people!

These two examples of groups with a history in the last 7 years of declining memberships is the normal rather than the exception when it comes to membership decline. Very few groups have shown an increase. Most show a sharp decline as outlined in Putnam’s book.

As I post more and more about groups and their needs I will reflect each groups past numbers and needs when known as well as current numbers when they are available. I will post about how to become engaged and involved, all while helping your own future and your individual health in the process! So you can be civic and yet benefit in several ways too.

New motivated volunteers are needed desperately in all areas of the volunteer network. That is what prompted me to write my book in 2006, with the help of a hugely successful and very professional writing coach near Philadelphia, PA. Unfortunately, my old coach has now published many of his own books while I could not get any publisher interested in my idea to rebuild America. Thus I am taking my cause to the people and I will cut out the middle man, or publisher if you will who did not see the potential of rebuilding America. It was not the fault of the writing coach or the publishers that my book did not see the light of day, it was my fault for not finding a way. Now I have found that way, this site. I may or may not compile new data on population declines and new information for a follow up book with current information, that is yet to be decided.

To construct my book back in 2006 I simply took some of my business graduate studies from Troy State University, combined that with my experience in several volunteer groups along with my training in Lean Manufacturing techniques, particularly the empowered worker concepts so that the result was the “Empowered Volunteer Rebuilds America, One Fraternal, Civic, and Veterans Group at a Time”. I will in future posts detail exactly how, step by step, a motivated individual should start to take back America, one fraternal, civic, and veterans group at at time. I hope to self-publish this book in both print as well as e-book format in the future.

To illustrate the incredible power of the data collected in Putnam’s book, particularly a concept called the Social Capital Index, I will quote a bit from “Bowling Alone”.

“States that score high on the Social Capital Index – that is, states whose residents trust other people, join organizations, volunteer, vote, and socialize with friends – are the same states where children flourish: where babies are born healthy and where teenagers tend not to become parents, drop out of school, get involved in violent crime, or die prematurely due to suicide or homicide. 

Statistically, the correlation between high social capital and positive child development is as close to perfect as social scientists ever find in data analysis of this sort. States like North Dakota, Vermont, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Iowa have healthy civic adults and healthy well adjusted kids; other states, primarily those in the South, face immense challenges in both the adult and youth populations.”

Social capital by itself is not a cause for healthy kids or any other issue. It is a very big contributor but by itself it is only one factor. When combined with other factors the data suggests that when you do things to increase your social capital, you will incur increased health benefits.

How much for each individual and how soon all are individual characteristics that are very hard to determine without mounds of data from before you started and then followup data after you are fully engaged in the program. For our purposes we will rely on the various studies that show the benefits to those who have done similar programs. Basically, if it works for others over the years, we will strive to get the same results all while helping people in need and collectively helping our country.

By the way, there is no reason this pattern I will submit for the American citizens could not be used all over the world. The World Bank has encouraged many countries to engage in increasing the social capital of the citizens in the area involved. The concept is powerful and it has had success in many areas beyond helping American volunteer groups. In time if there is a demand I will study other countries and their issues and tailor this program for their needs. This program certainly can help others, but the massive data analysis from “Bowling Alone” helped justify the various techniques I have tailored for my Rebuilding of America program. Other countries might have different needs due to different conditions and populations.

To summarize, Empowered Volunteers are individuals who have a purpose, to increase the membership of their worthy cause or charity. In the process of helping their cause, they will contribute to the overall rebuilding of American volunteer groups, including civic groups, fraternal groups, and veteran groups. There are also many other worthy groups for empowered volunteers to help, youth groups, trade groups, garden clubs, church groups, and many others. No mater what worthy group you choose, you can be sure that when you hook up someone with a group that they feel passionate about you will be one step closer to rebuilding America’s volunteer infrastructure. You will be the next Empowered Volunteer who helps rebuild America, one volunteer at at time.

Share on Tumblr

Group with the Optimist Creed

This sentence is found on the second line of the Optimists Creed. The Optimists are a group of individuals who promote children’s or youth activities in the community where the group meets.

Properly called Optimists International, they are focused on helping kids in communities. Their site is, http://www.optimist.org/.

I have the Optimists Creed on the wall in my office. I try and repeat it out loud as often as I remember. It is a wonderful set of positive sentences which when read aloud can help program your mind into a better area. I have done this off and on since I was a member of the group, back in Iowa in the late 80′s.

Back then after every weekly morning meeting, we would repeat the creed as a group, outloud. It really helped me kick off my day to see and visit with so many positive people. I really loved the atmosphere and the energy everyone brought to the breakfast meetings. Note, some clubs have evening or lunch meetings. I could not have worked my schedule as a Navy Recruiter around anything but a breakfast meeting so I am glad my group met early, around 7 AM.

There are many worthwhile youth groups in America. I have never found another which helps the members in this unique way though. The members gain through their associations with each other a great deal even before they apply their talents for helping the kids on community wide projects.

You can check out their website to see what the local Optimist group close to you is actively participating or sponsoring.

Optimists are very well known for their happy attitudes and attempt to bring this upbeat nature to their programs and activities for the youth in their communities. From the website the current numbers for Optimists International are 87,000 individual members who belong to 2,900 autonomous clubs. Optimists conduct 65,000 service projects each year, serving six million young people. Optimists also spend $78 million on their communities annually. These are some real good numbers reflecting extensive leverage of action for the size of the population doing this great work.

For the Empowered Volunteer to totally grasp the reality of these numbers, the membership in 2007 was 123,865 and club totals were 3,918.

The decline is dramatic over the last 6 years!

The decline of nearly 37,000 members and almost 1,000 clubs is reflective of the economic decline for sure, but also I submit it is due to the lack of knowledge of how much volunteering can do for the individual’s personal health and mental well being.

See the posts on this blog regarding the various health studies relating to social connections and social capital and increases in individual status for associated ideas and related data. If more people knew how much they gained from volunteering this and many other groups should see a steady increase in membership.

This is the purpose of the empowered volunteer, to get the message out for both the individual benefits as well as the incredible nature of many of these civic groups for the public to see.

I will reprint the Optimists Creed in full below to illustrate just how positive this groups creed really is. I don’t personally know of another group’s creed which even comes close to such positive thoughts.

The Optimist Creed
Promise Yourself …
To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

I personally love this creed! It is a great way to start any day when you recite it out loud. I highly recommend doing so and then track your results. You will be surprised how effective this practice can be in making you a bit brighter for the rest of the day, with carry over to the next in many cases!

Being an Optimist was for me a pleasure and a fond memory. I networked my way into other groups from this initial membership and gained even more individual pleasure from extending my personal connections and relationships among adults. I stopped being just the local Navy Recruiter and became myself again. I really needed the balance of adult relationships after the total commitment needed to find worthy candidates for the US Navy.

This demanding job of finding sailors to man the expanding US Navy back in the late 80′s was all encompassing and all consuming. I needed a diversion from my duties and many of my “formal requests” from my command to join groups were denied. This group and the Freemasons were finally approved formerly by Navy Recruiting District Omaha. I was thrilled. I has already networked my way to meeting several Optimists and Freemasons at the local YMCA, so I was ready to petition.

Freemasons are often members of other worthy groups

I networked my way into joining the local Freemasons Lodge in Newton, Iowa next (you had to petition and then be initiated after you passed the famous voting process) and this combination of groups and the many friends I developed helped me tremendously with the stress and strain of Navy Recruiting which each military recruiter was dealing with back then. I owe a lot to both groups for keeping me sane during these very difficult times!

I also networked my way to visiting, in uniform a US Navy function with NATO! I was formerly invited by a Marine Major who liked my involvement with the Optimists, as he was also in his community of Va Beach, Va. So he invited me to join him as his guest for the Icelandic NATO celebration. I was delighted, but the stipulation was I had to do it in full dress uniform. He was dressed in his, so that was understandable.

I was by far the lowest ranking of Navy personnel there visible and several times I had to state I was a guest and not the help as one officer or another would try and hand me some plate to take away, they just could not allow an enlisted person to be a guest!

But the Icelandic food was great and I got a personal introduction to the U. S. Admiral in charge of the whole East Coast of the US. This is very rare experience for a junior enlisted sailor for those of you not familiar with military formalities. Enlisted folks only see such senior officers when they stand at attention at change of command ceremonies or when they serve meals.It is very rare to have a one on one private chat with one, especially at that officers request!

I was a Petty Officer 2nd Class at the time, MM2 (SS/SW) for those who know and care about the rate and warfare designations used in the Navy. It is very rare for a private conversation to take place between two individuals of such divergent ranks, which the admiral initiated when he saw my recruiting badge. He had an interest in where I was recruiting as well as how things were going in the recruiting world after the First Gulf War, particularly how the war had impacted our efforts.

This informal conversation played a huge part in my continued service in the Navy later on when the Admiral’s Chief of Staff called my command at NRD Omaha on my behalf. Literally within minutes of that call an unjust circumstance against me was straightened out and my new orders to stay in the Navy were arriving on the curly paper that was the fax machine back then. Such is the power of networking! My wife and I were trilled to move to my next assignment.

My point is that you never know when simply being in a very worthy group can change your whole life as this one event changed mine. If I had not sought out adult company to balance my work related needs I would never have been able to network my way to visiting with the senior most officer on the East Coast.

I also balanced my need for adult company with a new found Masonic brother who had been a POW during Viet Nam War. His stories helped me make sense of a world when I needed the help and I was and still am very grateful for his kind conversations.

I am sure many of you can find this youth group worthwhile today, even if you need to start one yourself. Consider helping this or another group of your choice by volunteering today. You never know when a small thing could change your life forever.

Share on Tumblr