Has the Volunteer Boom Come to Delaware?

“It has definitely spiked!” was the response of Carrie Happoldt of the State Office of Volunteerism’s Dover Office when we asked if the number of volunteers logging on to www.VolunteerDelaware.org, an online volunteer opportunity database, had grown. “We saw a 300% increase in volunteers this November through January versus the same time period a year ago,” Happoldt said. But she quickly pointed out that in Delaware there is another factor that has to be considered: Governor Markell’s “Better Delaware” campaign. In December, 2008, Jack and Carla Markell announced that they would forego the usual inauguration ceremonies. Instead, they asked Delawareans to volunteer especially during the "Better Delaware Weekend of Service" scheduled for January 24-25, 2009, the time when the inaugural ball would normally be held. Delawareans responded to the call. Some 10,000 volunteer hours were contributed that weekend and logged onto VolunteerDelaware according to Happoldt.

Just how many of these volunteers were unemployed is hard to say. Users registering with VolunteerDelaware aren't asked about their employment status. Happoldt suggested that we might want to talk to some nonprofits directly, such as hospitals, where people with very specific career goals often choose to volunteer.

“We have seen a definite increase in volunteers,” said Margarita Rodriguez-Duffy, Manager of Volunteer Services at Christiana Health Care System, “and many are career changers. Often they have just finished a training program such as medical assistance or medical billing and are looking for experience or to get their foot in the door.” As pointed out in the New York Times article, it can be a real challenge for nonprofits to find work for all these volunteers to do. “Often unemployed volunteers" Rodriguez-Duffy said, "come here with a very specific task that they want to do, for example, medical coding. These aren’t always the jobs we have volunteers do.” And the timing of the current influx is a bit off for the hospital. “We are starting to gear up for our Teen Program which will add 200 young people to our volunteer corps for the summer months. We are getting inundated!”

Finally, we asked Rodriguez-Duffy if she was seeing more and more people 50+ among her new volunteers. “Yes”, she responded, “many want to do a career change because they are now retired or their job has been eliminated. Having people with such impressive experience and skills is forcing us to be more creative in how we place people. One volunteer 50+, for example, will help us run our teen program. Another will be writing a computer user guide.”