365 Inspirations—280: Volunteers

"Be of service. Whether you make yourself available to a friend or co-worker, or you make time every month to do volunteer work, there is nothing that harvests more of a feeling of empowerment than being of service to someone in need."—Gillian Anderson

I now have two volunteers in my Monday class of close to 30 students from over 15 countries. I'm an ESL teacher at a local community college. Volunteers make such a difference in my large classes. It's hard to get to every single student and answer their individual questions and they often need individual help.

Today I am inspired by and grateful for all the people who have volunteered in my classes and helped my students. I'm actually grateful for anyone who volunteers for anything.

With busy schedules, work, life, family and other things that take up our time, it is not easy to volunteer for anything, but when you do, it makes such a difference.


Have you ever volunteered for anything? What was it?

365 Inspirations—99: Volunteers

Do you volunteer for anything or have you ever been a volunteer? Today I'm grateful and inspired by my volunteers. I'm an ESL teacher with over 100 students this quarter. I don't know how I could do it without the people who so graciously volunteer their time in my classes.


One class typically has 35 plus students in it. That's a lot to handle for one teacher, but the volunteer program at my college is very well organized and the coordinator always asks me if I need volunteers in my classes.

Long ago, I didn't think I needed them and thought I could do everything myself. These days, I am realizing that I could use some help because my classes are so big.

It feels good to help people who need it, so I know the volunteers get something from it too. I know I certainly do.

Last week I had a skills lab class with 40 students and only one other assistant. We needed more help and weren't able to get to everyone in class.

Today, I had a volunteer in my regular class who agreed to stay on for an extra 30 minutes for my lab class. Even that extra 30 minutes made such a difference.

Sometimes I think we feel we don't want to help because there's not much we can do or that the short amount of time we have to do something for someone else won't make a difference.

I believe that ever minute makes a difference. Just the intention of wanting to help another person can make a difference.

Have you ever been a volunteer or have you ever helped anyone out who needed it?