volunteer ideas

[mattg]

Hey guys,

Does anyone have any good volunteer ideas for the lsat 2 months or so of summer... I am volunteering at a hospital in August, but I'm just wondering if anyone has any good ideas that don't require a long and arduous sign-up period? Any ideas would be appreciated!

ps. the difficult part is, I am working 9-5, Mon-Fri for the whole summer... so it would have to be something that can be done evenings and/or weekends...

 

I dunno, I'm thinking it might be too difficult to find something like this at this point, maybe it would be better to just get some clinical experience, and see if I can shadow some doctors? (which would be more flexible than volunteerting)

 

thanks guys

[japlanet]

Red Cross disaster prepardeness. Training is one weekend, then you're on call if something major goes down to provide first aid, hand out water, food, blankets etc. They alwaysneed people for this. Contact your local Red Cross branch to find out more.

[Fallen]

Looks good, japlanet. Thanks for the idea... just curious, how long did you volunteer for the disaster management team?

[snoopdog23]

If you're looking for a rewarding volunteer experience this summer, I would definitely recommend the Companion Program with the Alzheimer Society. It's such an amazing program and it not only helps out those people affected with Dementia, but their families and caregivers too.

 

The program also gives you great experience communicating and interacting with the older generation- something which we'll all be doing quite frequently in the future.

 

I absolutely love volunteering here and the people who run the program and the participants are incredibly awesome!

 

Here's the link if you're interested: http://www.alzheimer.ca/english/offices/on.htm

[snoopdog23]

Oh! I forgot to mention!

The Companion Program is really flexible and you can pretty much chose when you can volunteer (min 2 hours/week) based on yours and your companion's schedule

[Halcyon]

Best Buddies is a really cool program. There's also e-Buddies, which is the online version of it.

 

It really makes a difference in the lives of the people with developmental disabilities that are linked into the program. The participants speak highly of their "buddies", which are often university students.

 

Hope that helps

[Oak]

You could probably volunteer for a kid's camp maybe, you can teach science there or just lead general activities?

There should be tons of camps going on these days.

[dubious]

A really good way to gain some teaching experience, help out your fellow man and getting a few extra bucks if you want is to become a tutor. There are always postings on craigslist.ca or kijiji.ca of high school students needing help with basic sciences. You could even go to a local public school and see if they have an after-school program where volunteers come and offer to help students with their homework. It is very rewarding!

[Prothrombin]

These are all great ideas, but you have to remember that you should volunteer doing something you're passionate about and something you love to do, whether it be a hobby or a pastime. I mean every med school applicant has volunteer experience in a hospital/healthcare setting, it's a given. What you should do, is something non health care related that you are interested in. As an example, i'm a huge car nut and go crazy over anything related to auto racing so I decided to help out setting up the race track for every event as well as do some misc. duties like record times. Works good for me because races are only on Sat and Sun. You sound pretty busy, but i know that lots of places would never turn you down even if its for only a couple of hours a week. Its probably a big bonus if you live in a big city too because once you find something you're interested in, you can Google up groups in the city and ask if they need help.