History

Thousands of volunteers from around the world donate their time and considerable talents to knit, crochet and quilt handmade items, often blankets, for those in need.  On many levels this simple act of compassion weaves a common theme – that comfort heals. 

The history of blanket making has roots in every culture.  Early settlers took their rug making skills and began trade.  It wasn’t long before trade developed charity components; new materials created softer, lighter blankets which were often given as gifts to rich and poor.  The term “blanketeer” dates back to the 1800’s and political unrest.

Learn the story of “crafting for charity” and how it has become an international movement.  Hillary Roberts, President of Project Linus NJ, Inc., shares the work of her organization and discusses the roots of hundreds of similar projects involving volunteer crafters.

Synergist was a magazine published three times a year during the 1980s by the National Center for Service-Learning (NCSL), one of the lesser-known programs of the former American federal government agency, ACTION. NCSL provided resources and technical assistance to schools and agencies seeking best practices for service-learning projects for students. Synergist offered its articles at no charge and without copyright. The article reprinted here is the “Guest Speaker” feature from the Spring 1980 edition. It’s by a young Marian Wright Edelman, already director of the Children’s Defense Fund.

 

In her passionate essay, Edelman examines how students can combat small injustices to break the larger patterns of neglect bringing woe to millions of children. Still pertinent 25 years later, her words give a blueprint for taking constructive action as one person against the system.

Although South Africa has a long history of volunteering, employee volunteer programmes are a relatively new trend. Charities Aid Foundation Southern Africa (CAFSA) has been actively encouraging and facilitating employee giving for a number of years. They have recently embarked on a new campaign designed to raise the awareness of employee volunteering and to increase the number of companies offering employee volunteering programmes to their staff.

This article describes the context and tradition of South African volunteering in general and employee volunteering in particular. Then there is a detailed account of the first-ever Employee Volunteer Week run by CAFSA in early 2005, with a thoughtful discussion of the effort’s successes, challenges, and plans for 2006. Also included are a PDF of the how-to toolkit developed for employers and nonprofits, several photographs, and a brief video clip of the public service announcement filmed for promotion.

During the 1939 German Blitz, many people in Britain lost their homes and, subsequently, their ability to cook meals for themselves. The Meals on Wheels Association of America Web site further recounts:

The Women's Volunteer Service for Civil Defense responded to this emergency by preparing and delivering meals to their disadvantaged neighbors. These women also brought refreshments in canteens to servicemen during World War II. The canteens came to be known as "Meals on Wheels." Thus, the first organized nutrition program was born.

After the war, Americans adopted the home-delivered meal concept, with the first program begun in Philadelphia in 1954. Today, Meals on Wheels exists throughout the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere, including Japan. This “Voices from the Past” re-discovers the origins of this well-known, volunteer-intensive social service.

Over a year ago, Steve McCurley sent Susan a gift from a local library book sale. It was a copy of the 1966 novel for teens by Alice Ross Colver, Vicky Barnes, Junior Hospital Volunteer: The Story of a Candy Striper. Steve was right that Susan would like this sample of volunteering folklore. How could she not, with dialogue throughout the 171 pages like this:

“I’m accepted!” she breathed. “At least I’m to appear for an Orientation Course next week Monday. Oh, Mother, I’m so terribly happy!” She stopped and ended with a wobbly smile on her face. “Here’s my report card. I got all A’s.”

“And that, if I’m not mistaken,” her mother said smilingly, “is an anticlimax.”

This Voices from the Past shares more of Vicky’s adventures as a volunteer as well as other references from older books for children and teens that shaped all our impressions of what volunteering is and who does it.

In 1980, VOLUNTEER: The National Center for Citizen Involvement (predecessor of the Points of Light Foundation) published Exploring Volunteer Space: The Recruiting of a Nation, by Ivan H. Scheier. As has been the case so often with Ivan’s writing, the book was way ahead of its time and unfortunately is now largely unknown. It is a joy to be able to use this “Voices from the Past” feature section of e-Volunteerism to reintroduce new readers to the very-much-still-relevant pages of Exploring Volunteer Space. In the Introduction, Ivan says:

The further cultivation of volunteering is the theme of this book; intensifying, energizing, and expanding it, working out from today’s career leadership of volunteering. The core is the director, coordinator or administrator of volunteer programs, plus resource people and organizations at local, state and national levels. These leaders number an estimated 70,000-80,000 people in the United States today…Without this leadership, there would be no significant volunteer movement for anyone to analyze here. Nevertheless, this leadership seems thin on the line, because the volunteer helping army is far larger than we suppose, and visible leadership, however, talented, shrinks drastically in relation.

In the excerpt presented here, we share Ivan’s thoughts on “Thick and Thin Leadership” – “Practical Issues in Career Effectiveness.” Over time, we’ll revisit Exploring Volunteer Space and give our readers more excerpts. And, since Ivan is Consulting Editor for this journal (/team/scheier.php), we may even hear from him directly in response.

For centuries, women relied on one another to assist in the labor and birthing process – as they still do in many countries of the world. As medicine advanced, midwives became more formally educated, but eventually doctors dominated childbirth care. First both female friends and families were pushed from the delivery room, but then invited back in. In all these stages in the evolution of childbirth, volunteers played an important role, closely connected in the last century to asserting women’s rights. This article will highlight some of the ways volunteers made a difference to the start of life, including some history of groups such as the International Childbirth Education Association and the La Leche League.

Whilst research and interest in all aspects of volunteering and the third sector generally have grown exponentially since the 1990s, both internationally and in Australia, Australian historians have been ‘missing in action’ – they have not generally been part of this explosion of interest. Sociologists, social workers, economists, lawyers, accountants, political scientists, environmentalists, business managers, information technologists, those interested in sport and tourism – the list is endless - are part of an evolving multidisciplinary approach to what is now labelled as the ‘third sector’, ‘voluntary sector’, or ‘non-profit sector’, depending on your national preference. Public debates and discussions over issues of social capital; global initiatives such as the United Nations International Year of Volunteers in 2001; and the rise of peak organizations such as Volunteering Australia, have all brought volunteering to the fore.

But volunteering and voluntary action, the history of the non-profit sector and its relationship with government, are largely neglected topics in twentieth century Australian history. Whilst volunteering and voluntary action are integral to our western democratic traditions and both have played key roles in the development of Australian society in the twentieth century, our national histories remain largely silent. Where are the stories of volunteers, volunteering and the voluntary principle in our national histories? They have largely been ignored. They are part of our ‘invisible histories’.

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Read the keynote address delivered by Melanie Oppenheimer at the 10th National Conference on Volunteering, held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 2 June 2004.

 

Volunteers from the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Misery of Public Prisons began visiting incarcerated people in 1787. Over the next 117 years, the organization continued its efforts to improve prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners. Today the same organization continues its work as the Pennsylvania Prison Society.

In 1895, Warden J.W. French, the first Warden at the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, realized that Federal prisoners needed an incentive to foster positive behavior. He and Chaplain F.J. Leavitt pioneered the idea of inviting people from the community to assist their institution, especially in providing literacy courses and religious services.

While much of society turns its back on convicted offenders, volunteering in prisons has always been a calling for others, both in the US and elsewhere. This article looks at how community activists, religious evangelicals, and compassionate idealists made – and still make – an impact on prison life.