Recently, I had the pleasure of volunteering at the Seattle/King County Clinic (SKCC). http://seattlecenter.org/skcclinic/
This is an event that happens once per year. Seattle/King County Clinic brings together healthcare organizations, civic agencies, non-profits, private businesses and volunteers from across the State of Washington to produce a giant free health clinic in KeyArena at Seattle Center. The four-day volunteer-driven clinic provides a full range of free dental, vision and medical care to underserved and vulnerable populations in the region. From the first year, 2014 through 2017: over 16,000 patients have been served, almost $14 million in direct services and there have been 13,800+ volunteers.
During the SKCC, I met many other chiropractors. These are not providers that are struggling in their practice, these are doctors that have wait-list practices, but they choose to close during their normal hours to be at the clinic to share the gift that is chiropractic. I had the chance to adjust many people that had never experienced chiropractic before. After their adjustments I heard; I feel taller, I feel lighter, I feel warmer. I still remember my first adjustment, I was 25 years old. I remember feeling all those things, I remember how the sun felt on my skin when I walked to my car, I remember how light I felt, how tall I could be. I remember thinking, how have I never been told how amazing I would feel. I love to share that, to feel what a better version of yourself is and what you can be.
Here are 3 reasons why volunteering is good for your soul
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Volunteers live longer and are healthier. In fact, people who volunteer in their later years get more health benefit from volunteering than from exercise. In general, people who volunteer when they are older, typically started volunteering when they were younger, so it is never to soon or too late to start.
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Volunteering is good for society. Just like the SKCC, many organizations rely on and couldn’t function without volunteers. These organizations often cover services that government programs can’t. The foreseeable future indicates that more and more people will be affected by services that the government is dropping, and volunteers will be critical to fill these gaps.
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Volunteering gives you purpose. The very definition of volunteer is; to freely offer to do something. When someone chooses to volunteer, the activity they volunteer for has a particular attraction to them. It is an activity the volunteer feels strongly about, an activity that the volunteer can express their sense of purpose. The ability to express our purpose has a deep effect on our wellbeing.
Three out of four of us doesn’t currently volunteer. If you would like to volunteer but aren’t sure where to look, try one of these to get started: http://www.volunteermatch.org/ , http://www.serve.gov/ . Volunteer opportunities abound at places like; museums, faith-based organizations, and social service organizations like, Habitat for Humanity, animal rights organizations and Amnesty International.
