10 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, January 7, 2000 FRIDAYFOCUS ,: :. - .- , . . 'Y S r S urrounded by bowls of freshly chopped vegetables and steam- ing pans o ?turkey and gravy, Ron Foster decided he hadn't made enough corn for Christmas dinner. "You just never know how many are going to be in that room," said Foster, assistant cook at the Lansing City Rescue Mission, as he pulled an enormous bag of donated corn from the freezer. Foster, along with the Nunez family - eight children and two adults - who volunteered to help, served the holiday dinner to about 55 home- less men and women. Smiles and holiday greet- ings were exchanged as the men piled the food donated by the local Kroger and L&L Shop Rite on paper plates. While churches, schools and charities across the country bustled with volunteerism spurred by the holiday season, finding helping hands at other times of year can be more diffi- cult, said Bonnie Billups Jr., program director of the Peace Neighborhood Center in Ann Arbor. The holiday season is an especially popular time to show interest in community service, Billups said. "People reflect a lot at that time of year. They want to know how they can give back. I wish people would feel that way 365 days per year." Volunteering for credit University students have the chance to com- mit to an entire semester of volunteer work through two English classes that take students out of the classroom. English 310, offered in the fall semester and 319, offered in the winter semester, train groups of students to write, direct and perform plays with high school students,juvenile offenders and incar- cerated convicts. LSA junior Kristal Jaaskelainen took English 310 last semester and found herself working with disadvantaged children at Southeaster High School in Detroit. She said students began the class concerned about what they might be getting themselves into. "We all went in a little leery about what would go on," Jaaskelainen said. "But the high school students got so excited about performing and about being on stage. They were really happy at the end and excited they had produced some- thing." Many of the high school students had never had a chance to perform and some didn't even know where the University was, Jaaskelainen said, but that didn't stop them from displaying amazing talents. "Some of them got to explore being in front of people for the first time," she said. "They had so much energy and were so funny." Some critics might say that since the English classes result in credit, the work students do is not really voluntary, Jaaskelainen said, but the key to their experience is what they do after the class has finished and their time is no longer measured by a grade. "The class is definitely more of a commitment, but it leads into other things like the Prison Creative Arts Project," she said. "I'm going to do another project that I won't get credit for but just because I enjoy it." The classes also allow students to get to know each other and test their limits and abilities, Jaaskelainen said. An outpouring of service S.O.S. Community Service Volunteer Coordinator Donna Vigilant said while the out- pouring of interest in community service from November to January demonstrates a genuine desire to help others, holiday volunteers may not be in for the long haul. "We're pretty flooded with phone calls of people interested in volunteering on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day," Vigilant said. "But when people get back into their routine with work and school, they might drift away. It's far easier to volunteer for four hours than four months." But John Thomas, vice president of commu- nications for a Washington D.C. polling com- pany called Independent Sector, said the time of year people volunteer matters less than whether they are asked to participate in com- munity service. "During the holiday season, volunteering goes up a bit because there are so many institutional volunteer situations like civic clubs, church groups and schools that think of doing a project for the holiday season," Thomas said. "But more important than time of year is whether people are asked to volunteer. Ninety percent said yes when asked." The statistics of volunteerism In October, the Independent Sector released the findings of a survey conducted in 1999 in conjunction with the Gallup polling organiza- tion on giving and volunteering in the United States. The results show a positive trend in "it's far easier to volunteer for four hours than four months" - Donna Vigilant S.O.S. Community Service Volunteer Coordinator Americans' involvement with volunteer work - the highest incidence of volunteering since the company first conducted the survey in 1988. The bi-annual survey of 2,500 adults age 18 and older indicated that 46 percent of people ages 18-24 volunteered in some capacity during 1998. The researchers also discovered that people gave time to a wide range of issues, includ- ing religious-based activities, education, health, art and political campaigns. Work for political organizations was the least popular community service activity among survey respon- dents, but College Democrats President Josh Cowen said political volunteerism is no less important than other forms. "Volunteers are incredibly important to politi- cal campaigns," said Cowen, an LSA senior. "They absolutely rely on grass roots organization, especially in getting out the vote." Cowen said daily work on a campaign can challenge one's commitment and ability to perse- vere, and that's why diligence pays off in the end. "There's definitely a sense of victory and accomplishment," he said. "It's like being a part of a sports team. You have a focused goal, and when you meet it, it's very exciting." Depending on what kind of responsibilities volunteers perform and where they go to do the actual work, some organizations have a hard time finding people interested in helping their cause. "Over the years we've learned that it's tough to get people for social welfare causes like soup kitchens - things that are in the inner city where some might be fearful for their own safety," Thomas said. "Once they do, though, repeat incidence is also very high. There is a great reward for what they do in the camaraderie and teamwork of that kind of volun- teer experience," Thomas said. Foster said volunteering at the Lansing City Rescue Mission can be an eye-opening experience because of the hardship and sadness people will see. "The hardest part of this job is acally seeing the devastation of A SCHENCK/Daily drugs and alcohol on people's lives," Foster said. "This year has been particularly rough - we've buried three of them." Still, the rewards of the job overshadow the more difficult aspects of volunteering, Foster said. "The best thing about working here is being able to help all these people," he said. LSA junior Amy Diehl said she has found similar satisfaction in the work she does at Dawn Farms Detox Center in Ann Arbor. Diehl spends five hours per week at the center with voluntary patients during their first five days free of drugs and alcohol. Patients at the center sometimes have a rough time when they check in, Diehl said. "I hang out with them, talk to them and try to make them laugh a little bit," she said. Diehl said one of her favorite experiences at the center has been listening and sharing at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where attendants spoke about their experiences with addiction. Times like those helped put everything in per- spective, she said. "I've done (community service) since high school, but this is the first time I've found something I loved," she said. "It helps me stay focused on me. I get to not be me for a couple hours and come back and realize what's really DAVIU KATZ/UDily Ann Arbor Pioneer High School sophomore Noah Burton serves food at the First Presbyterian Church on Washtenaw Avenue on Wednesday. The church hosts a soup kitchen that rotates daily to different locations in Ann Arbor. important." As indicated in the survey, student-aged people do a significant amount of the volun- teering in the United States. The Michigan Student Assembly allocates money each year to University student groups that organize ser- vice projects through the MSA Community Service Commission. The 1999 budget will dole out about $77,000 this academic year to groups ranging from Documentary Works, a group that is following a Boys and Girls Club in Chicago projects, to University-sponsored blood drives. In all, MSA funded roughly 74 projects last semester. Commission Chair and LSA junior Michael Masters said a group's ability to obtain fund- ing is "absolutely vital" to accomplish its goals. "Many groups would not be able to function without the support MSA provides them," Masters said. "We take that obligation very seriously. The money comes from student tuition, and there's a trust there that we will handle that money respon- sibly." Diehl said she is surprised people don't give more of their time to community service organizations, considering the happiness it can bring - both to the lives of people they help and to their own. "I would guess that the majority of students don't volunteer," she said. "I don't know why more people don't want to. If you find the right one, it's about the best experience you can have." The numbers 3 56 percent of Americans volunteered in 1998, a figure equivalent to 109 million people. Volunteers worked a total of 19.9 billion hours. In a job paying minimum wage plus benefits, this time would have earned them about $225 billion. * 90 percent of Americans said yes to performing community service when asked. Americans aged 35 to 44.showed the highest percentage of involvement with volunteer work - 67 percent gave their time in 1998. N Volunteers work on a wide range of issues, but are more likely to do work in their own communities. Source: The Independent Sector DAVID RUGHKINU/Day TOP: Business School third-year student Ryan Buell knits gloves through the University group Knit Wits on October 9, 1998. ABOVE: Food Gatherers volunteer Bob Harris loads crates of food into a delivery truck yesterday morning. Harris has worked for five years with the organization collecting useable food from grocery stores and restaurants, and distributing it to those in need. ) 5 ;..; ::