New Year, New You

We all know how popular new year’s resolutions are. The start of the new year offers such a great time to kick start changes we’ve been dying to make all year that we just can’t resist. Maybe as a part of your New Year’s resolutions this year, you decided to finally take the leap into volunteering. Giving back to your community is a fantastic resolution, even if you decided to volunteer somewhere other than VU. 😉

To help keep you motivated when things get tough, we’ve compiled a list of why VU’s volunteers love volunteering with us. When you have a tough day, it can be easy to forget why you’re volunteering in the first place, so we hope these serve as a reminder for why you’re there. We also put together a list of VU volunteers’ top tips for working with students. Even if you aren’t volunteering with children, these perks and tips can be applied to whatever group you’re volunteering with!

Why Do Our Volunteers Choose VU?

1. Seeing the students work hard and progress over time
   • The whole reason any of us volunteer is because we want to help. So naturally, seeing the results of our efforts is a big reason we show up. At VU, our volunteers don’t always work with the same student every week, so it can be a while before volunteers  get to see their progress. But working with a student again after a few weeks makes their progress really noticeable, and it’s a great feeling to know that you played a part in it.
2. Receiving thanks from the students
   • What could feel better than seeing the results of your volunteeingr efforts? Having the people you’re helping thank you for doing it. This is especially true when you’re working with children and they thank you unprompted; you know they don’t have the social niceties fully ingrained into them yet, so if no one told them to say thank you, you can be sure it was genuine. One of our volunteers shared a story of the best thank you they’ve ever received from a student at VU, “During a previous year, the children decorated cookies at the VUHalloween party.  One girl decorated a cookie for me giving it to me as a thank you.  I had trouble locating the cookie under all the frosting, yet it was the best Halloween cookie I’ve ever eaten.”
3. Conversations with and learning from the students
   • It’s counter-intuitive, but sometimes the best thing about volunteering can be what you learn from those you’re helping. It can be easy to get so focused on your goal that you forget to listen to the thoughts and stories of those you’re working with, but when you do, it’s always worthwhile. One of our volunteers told us about an experience like this they had while working with one of our students, ”I also very much enjoy just having discussions with the kids. The most memorable is the one I had last year with one of the kids regarding Earth Day and his thoughts on protecting the environment. He had great insights.”
4. Building our diverse community
   • Community is so important for each of us, and even the smallest communities have diversity that we can benefit from. When we work together to make our community a better place, we all win. There are so many ways you can do this, from visiting people in a nursing home, volunteering in a soup kitchen, or working with children to help them succeed.

Tips From our Volunteers

1. Be flexible
   • No matter where you’re volunteering, life happens. Even the best plans get thwarted by something unexpected. Being flexible can help us find ways to get back on track when our original plan is no longer working. At VU, we provide a structured curriculum for our volunteers to use, but when the work isn’t fitting the student’s needs for that day, it’s important that volunteers remain flexible to keep the session on track. Maybe that means turning math flash cards into a competition when you’re working with two students at different math levels, or maybe it means ignoring the prompts we have to come up with a new one that a student is excited to write about. Whatever being flexible looks like on any given day, doing so will benefit you and whoever you’re working with.
2. Be patient
   • When we’re focused on a goal or we have a list of things we’re trying to get done, it can be frustrating when we feel like we aren’t making progress. It’s important to take a deep breath and stay patient. Working with our students at VU, sometimes a session feels like it’s not going well, until you get to the last 15 minutes and you finally find something that clicks with the student and the last 15 minutes are extremely productive. Or if you’re not volunteering with children, maybe you’re working with someone who is having a bad day and your kindness and patience is what they need to get through it, even if they’re being cranky in the meantime. We all deserve patience, so remember to carry yours with you when you’re volunteering!
3. Keep at it
   • We all know that it is important to keep going, even when things get hard. We’re told to get up when we fall down, to just keep swimming, and that the right path is not always the easiest one. Just like in life, perseverance is important for volunteering. A VU volunteer told us how they think about this for working with our students, “I see VU being about small gains over a long period. Keep with the work, and you will see the children’s successes.”
4. Connection and build the student’s confidence
   • We all perform our best when we feel cared for by those we’re working with, whether it’s your boss or you’re a VU student working with a volunteer. We are motivated to do better when someone believes in us, and even more so when we believe in ourselves. One of VU’s volunteers said it best, “Finding something to create a connection or build their confidence is key to working with students. Sometimes that can be outside the box– I had a great discussion with one of the boys by getting up and using the maps on the wall to talk about where we were, where our families have been, and where we want to be!”