Volunteers in America. Volunteering in the USA: what free work can give you. What and how is paid

Work without money for thanks. Many in the United States do this out of a desire to help or gain the necessary experience. Volunteering for newcomers to America is a good opportunity to adapt to a new environment, brush up on the language, practice in an area of ​​interest, or simply get busy if you don’t have a work permit in the States. For those who are ready to work for free, the Forum tells you what benefits volunteering can bring.

Two sides of the coin

In America, being a volunteer is useful, and in some cases necessary. In particular, during college, students often need to complete a professional internship, during which they work as volunteers, for free, in their specialty. Volunteering can also be the first career step for a young professional with no work experience who wants to join his dream company, or for a newly arrived migrant who wants to join a professional environment. Having volunteer experience behind you makes it easier to find a job or go to college.

Over more than a century and a half of the existence of the volunteer movement in the United States, free labor has been used in almost all areas - from working with children or the elderly to the film sets of multimillion-dollar Hollywood films. However, sometimes companies openly abuse the altruism of volunteers. Thus, in 2013, interns who worked for free for more than six months for the film company Fox Searchlight Pictures on the set of the film “Black Swan”, which earned more than $300 million, won the trial and sued for their wages.

IMPORTANT: The US Department of Labor clearly defines six criteria when internships in commercial companies may not be paid:

  1. internship is essentially vocational training;
  2. the experience gained is useful for the intern;
  3. the intern does not replace the employee, but works under his leadership;
  4. the employer does not receive direct benefits from the intern's activities;
  5. the intern does not necessarily receive a job after completing the internship;
  6. the employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to payment for time spent in the internship.

However, in general, the US population volunteers a lot and with pleasure.According to the latest data , in 2014, every fourth resident of the country was involved in volunteer activities in one form or another. And even US President Barack Obama regularly volunteers at the Martha’s Table charity organization on the eve of Thanksgiving and distributes food to those in need. At the same time, his entire family volunteers with him - his wife, children and even his mother-in-law.

How to help yourself by helping others

Newly arrived immigrants can find many advantages in volunteering if, of course, they are mentally prepared to work for free.

  1. Volunteering will help you learn English and integrate into society

The best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in the language environment and communicate more. You will be accepted to volunteer at any level of language proficiency.

There are many volunteer positions where you don’t even have to talk, but you can listen and delve as much as you like. This could be working in a library, museum, or souvenir shops at museums or amusement parks. Volunteering in the classroom is a good idea for mothers of schoolchildren - you can help the teacher, cut and paste educational materials. Nature lovers can help at farms, parks, animal shelters and zoos.

Such volunteer work will also help newcomers to the United States understand the peculiarities of the American mentality and the details of everyday life.

Where to look for positions:

If there are no suitable positions on general sites, then you can try a specialized search. Just enter “volunteering” and your area of ​​interest into the search bar. For example, physics, biology, medicine and so on. You can also enter your location or even view a position at a specific institution.

Elena Kostrygina came to the United States from Donetsk 15 years ago and immediately took a volunteer position as a web administrator: she created survey forms on the site, learned to communicate correctly by e-mail and phone, and updated the site. In total, the work took about ten hours a week.

Elena Kostrygina worked as a volunteer in her profession. Photo from personal archive.

Elena did the same thing in her homeland, so a year and a half of volunteering became an excellent work experience for her, an opportunity to improve her professional and spoken language and a worthy line on her resume. “For those who want to continue to pursue their professional interests upon arrival in the United States, I would advise them to find volunteering in their field and work in this field for some time,” she says.

  1. Volunteering will help you enroll and graduate from college.

In both schools and colleges, any volunteer activity is encouraged - it helps teenagers develop leadership skills, shows their activity and initiative, and later becomes a good start for building a resume. In addition, volunteering helps teenagers decide what areas they are interested in, what they are strong in, and what makes sense to work on.

Volunteering during your high school years is a big plus when applying to college. Volunteering, or the so-called internship (internship), is a prerequisite for graduating from college. For the interns themselves, this is an opportunity to gain practical experience, which can be safely included in their resume. However, as a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, cited by the American Forbes , interns who completed an unpaid internship get jobs with lower salaries than those who did not undergo an internship at all. But after a paid internship, graduates find higher-paying positions.

Where to look for positions:

For interns:

Natalia Volkodav came to the United States from Zaporozhye in 2009 with her husband and child. I wanted to improve my English and not sit at home all the time, so I almost immediately got a job as a decorator in a bakery. After six months of work, volunteers were promised a decorator certificate and the opportunity to get a paid job. But within a few months Natalya found a job in a restaurant at the San Jose airport, and the line about volunteering in her resume helped her significantly.

Volunteering helped Natalya Volkodav improve her English and fill out the necessary line on her resume. Photo from personal archive.

And in 2014, Natalya entered a California college for a two-year nursing course. Volunteering as a nurse is a mandatory requirement during training. Natalia has already volunteered at the Kaizer Medical Center, as well as at individual events and examinations. This gave her not just a line on her resume, but also irreplaceable experience, with which she has a much greater chance of being in demand in her profession.

“Volunteering is a very important component of education and profession. After all, for an employer it’s like a sign: if a person agrees to do something for free, it means he’s really interested in it,” she said.

  1. Volunteering allows you to do interesting things and help others

If you do not have and do not yet have the opportunity to work, but you are full of energy and want to develop, be useful and needed, then volunteering becomes an ideal opportunity to realize yourself. You can choose to work in the field of your professional activity or find one-time events if you don’t have time for full-time volunteering. And for those who cannot sit still and are attracted by the wind of distant travels, volunteer positions abroad are perfect. Volunteers are always needed for schools and training centers around the world. The only “but” is that you will have to pay for flights, insurance and, possibly, housing. - working with children, volunteering at a surfer's beach

http://www.wwoof.net/ — volunteering on organic farms

https://movingworlds.org/ — dozens of different positions around the world

http://www.freevolunteering.net/ - diverse positions

http://www.camphill.org/ — work with children and people with special needs

Elena Aravina has been in California for 2.5 years. Almost immediately after arriving from Saratov, she found a volunteer position at the Fort Ross Russian Historical Heritage Festival, which takes place annually near San Francisco. According to Elena, she was driven primarily by curiosity and the desire to find herself, but this first experience gave her a lot: communication, language practice, socialization. And after that, volunteering itself became a conscious choice - to give part of my free time to a socially useful cause.

Elena Aravina volunteers at the Fort Ross festival. Photo from personal archive.

Elena is currently studying in college, so she cannot volunteer on a regular basis due to her school schedule. However, she is often found in the Silicon Valley Volunteers group on Meetup.com interesting one-time volunteer projects. In particular, Elena has already joined the tree planting campaign.

“Volunteering for me, an introvert, is first and foremost a challenge to myself. After all, you almost always have to communicate with strangers. In addition, it turned out to be very nice to do something for free. The main thing is to choose something you like, so that it does not greatly interfere with personal plans, then work will invariably be a pleasure!” - Elena thinks.

Now she is finishing her studies at college and preparing to go to work, but she does not plan to give up her volunteer work even in the future.

Volunteering in the United States is becoming increasingly popular. We can say that charity work is increasingly becoming fashionable, and that’s great! Schoolchildren, students, pensioners and people of all age categories are ready to help others on an altruistic basis. So what is behind this wonderful and kind word, like volunteering in the USA and why people are eager to volunteer in the USA, we will figure it out in this article.

It’s sad, but the word volunteering is not often used in Russia, because basically it’s every man for himself. My home, my fortress. And no one cares what happens on the site in the entrance or in the yard. Over the years, the situation has changed, people begin to help orphanages, hospitals, those who find themselves in a hopeless situation, good deeds are gaining momentum, and this is great!
The first time I thought about helping others was when I went traveling. After all, before the trip there was not even time to think about others. Whatever it was, there was no time to think about myself: I had to somehow survive, earn money and try to survive in this madness. You won’t believe it, but one of the most pleasant things to do after a hectic life was sweeping the paths in a. While doing this good deed, the thought slipped into my head: “How did I get to this point?!” Smart, successful, with two degrees and working as a janitor somewhere in Asia!” And a smile appeared on your face from the fact that you were doing a useful and good deed and did not demand anything in return. You are calm and not galloping anywhere. Then it was where we lived with the local population in a remote village not far from the city of Van Vien. The feelings that overwhelm you from helping other people are difficult to describe. Your heart fills with happiness when you see the delighted faces of the children who were pedaling their bicycles along the dusty road in order to meet with you for 40 minutes and practice English.
Having moved to, I tried to find a volunteer organization that would agree to accept me and my altruistic work free of charge. But everything is not as simple as it seems. Volunteering in the United States is equivalent to public work, for which you must undergo an interview and an appropriate background check. The organization wants to make sure that they hire a person who is conscientious and honest. Sometimes the competition for a volunteer position can reach 40 people per position. The question arises: where does volunteering become so popular and where does the universal desire of people to help others come from?

The variety of volunteer activities and areas where you can get a job amazes even the richest imagination. This could be non-profit organizations to help poor and insolvent people, help for children, the homeless, help in a hospital, library, elderly people, disabled people, etc. the list can be endless. Even fitness and sports clubs resort to the help of volunteers to organize events, such as fundraising, as well as to work with children.

In the United States, there are entire platforms on which vacancies for volunteers are posted: from one-time assistance to work on a permanent basis. One such service: http://www.voa.org/
It is great that US citizens realize that not everyone lives well, not everyone has a roof over their head and a warm breakfast. A lot of people nowadays need help. The successful and wealthy in the United States open foundations and non-profit organizations that help and sponsor scientific research, care for the sick, people with disabilities, the homeless, as well as programs to help children from underdeveloped countries of the world.
Just recently, schools and colleges in the United States introduced a new rule requiring a certain number of hours of volunteer work. A kind of labor education that existed in the Soviet Union, when schoolchildren worked on collective farms. It’s the same here, only for the benefit of the whole society. When I was in school, collective farms had already been closed. We had the usual labor practice of cleaning the school and surrounding area.

Schoolchildren and students themselves choose the field of activity in which they want to be involved, depending on their interests. This could be a hospital, a nursing home, helping the disabled, working for the Red Cross, cleaning a park, helping to distribute food to the homeless, working in or other socially useful work. Depending on the educational institution, you will be required to provide a piece of paper stating that you have worked the required number of hours for the benefit of your homeland. A document containing volunteer hours worked is issued by the organizations in which the students worked. Without this document, the teacher will not accept the exams, and it is possible that they may be left for a second year.
Working in, volunteers often come to our aid. It is not at all necessary that these are only young people aged 10 to 18 years who need the coveted piece of paper. Pensioners come to us and volunteer to help arrange books and cope with the flow of literature. The library, in turn, offers free candy, snacks, water and various rewards for volunteering. After all, there is nothing more pleasant than receiving ordinary words of gratitude for your help. We often bring cookies to our volunteers, homemade cakes and various goodies in order to somehow thank them for their good deed.
I think this is an excellent practice for raising a new generation. From adolescence, Americans are instilled with benevolence, hard work and love for the Motherland.
When I couldn’t get a regular job, didn’t have a work permit, and there was no need, I was looking for an opportunity to get a job in a volunteer organization in order to be somehow useful to society and not feel like a seal on the couch. After a long search, I finally found an institution that agreed to accept my services. They asked to help an elderly woman with housework because it is very difficult for her to move, she is in a wheelchair. It was a little strange at first to come to the house of a complete stranger and help with household chores for free. After some time, I noticed that I was getting incredible pleasure and moral satisfaction from this, besides, the woman was very pleasant, and over the year of our communication we became very close, almost becoming family. We often call each other and chat for no reason, give gifts for the holidays, and support us in difficult times. She has many relatives, even several great-grandchildren, but they all live far away and do not have the opportunity to visit often to help. However, the situation is the same as mine: my dear grandmother and grandfather live far away and I do not have the physical ability to help them.

In addition, I helped an elderly couple in the neighborhood for a little over a year, but after a conflict arose between us and them, I stopped doing this. The fact is that people did not respect the work that I provided them at all. They treated me like a house worker, asked me to pet their disgusting, stinking dog with skinny legs, and joked in every possible way about the politics of Russia and the United States. And then, they have arms and legs, they can walk, which means they can pick up a rag. After six months of helping, I realized that helping such people is a waste of time and effort.

I really want volunteer organizations to appear and develop in Russia, so that people begin to help each other on an altruistic basis. Unfortunately, the volunteering system in Russia is not developed, but recently various funds have begun to appear to help people in need. The society began to donate some funds to good causes. It’s a pity, of course, that there are often scammers who try to make money from this and the funds collected for the treatment of a sick child go into someone’s pocket.

In the US, the donation system is completely different. You can always see in a detailed report what the donated funds were used for. Supermarkets and grocery stores often ask if you would like to donate a percentage of your purchase to a charity. Many large companies use charity in their marketing. They deduct from 1% to 5% of the enterprise's profits to a charitable foundation. And when people buy this product, they know that part of the money spent will go to a good cause. During the Christmas season, people with bells stand outside supermarkets, collecting donations to help and provide food for the homeless. Large non-profit organizations hold events to raise funds. For example, an organization to combat breast cancer in women dedicated an entire month to this. The logo of this global organization is a pink ribbon. Within a month, all the city's fountains were painted pink. Many organizations take part in fundraising by selling T-shirts and souvenirs with the company logo plus the logo of the fundraising event. All funds received from the sale of goods are transferred to a charitable foundation. In addition, sports marathons and athletic fundraising events are held. To participate in the event, you must make an initial contribution, part of which will go to a charitable foundation. There are non-profit organizations within churches. They collect clothes, toys and food for children, food for homeless dogs. During the pre-Christmas period, non-profit organizations accept gifts to send to children in poor countries.

I'm leading video blog on YouTube and often encounter people who say obscene and unpleasant things about the USA. I think this is all due to my ignorance and lack of education. I simply don’t respond to such people and block them immediately. I think that the USA is a wonderful country that little is known about. Truly virtuous and good-natured people will never boast and shout to the whole world that they are helping and doing good things, and they are not doing this for the sake of boasting. They have enough personal satisfaction and a sparkle in their once desperate eyes. Be kind, attentive to each other, help, do not be indifferent. Let's organize volunteer organizations in Russia, funds to help children, the sick and the poor. I hope that in a few years similar funds will appear in Russia. Only together, together, we can make this world a better place, but everyone must first start with themselves...

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The volunteer organization Volunteers For Peace is looking for volunteers willing to help disabled Americans travel around the country. This year, a whole series of medium-term volunteer projects under the general name “Explore New York” is being implemented. The project is supported by Sprout, a company that helps people with disabilities live full lives.

Nature of work

Volunteers will lead small groups of adults with disabilities during their holidays. The main task of the project participants will be to provide comfortable conditions during the delivery of the group to their destination, which includes monitoring safety, emotional and physical support, as well as entertaining passengers, planning the travel budget, and driving the vehicle. Volunteers must be ready to help their charges with everyday activities: brushing teeth, changing clothes, taking a shower, and so on. The organizers note that this is quite difficult work, but at the same time fun and with a good emotional return. In between trips you will be required to work in the office.

Terms of accommodation

During the trips, volunteers will live in hotels, and during breaks - in a hostel. Volunteers will provide their own food.

Requirements for participants

All project participants must be over 21 years of age. Preference is given to those who have an international driving license. Experience working with people with disabilities is desirable, but not required, as prior training will be provided. Insurance is provided only for the duration of travel. A very good level of spoken English is required from all project participants. Drinking alcohol in any quantity during travel is strictly prohibited. Everyone who wants to take part in the project must write a motivation letter and then undergo an interview by phone or Skype.

Dates

The series of projects will begin in late May and end in mid-October. The duration of each of them is 4-6 weeks. You can come at any time during this period.

Leisure opportunities

In their free time, volunteers will be able to get to know New York.

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