Listen Here
Column by Victoria Hansen
It’s my tradition to make a New Year’s resolution. Like 31% of Americans, I try to come up with some way that I’m going to make myself a better person in the new year. Maybe I’ll exercise more, use my phone less, or read a book a week. While all of these options are good, I find that one topic is too often left out of the self-improvement conversation: serving others.
There are as many ways to serve others as there are opportunities, and organized groups are a great way to start. If you’re looking for a place to help, an easy way to start is by looking at your life and what you value. Are you passionate about education? Try helping out at the Findlay-Hancock County Library with its Read For Life literacy program. United Way of Findlay has a list of local opportunities sorted by interest on its website.
Assistant Director of Campus and Community Engagement Alex Parker at the Buford Center often sends out emails with volunteer opportunities such as working Sunday Funday at the Mazza Museum once a month or with other off campus organizations.
Adding volunteer service to your schedule can seem daunting when you already have a busy schedule. While many volunteer opportunities require you to set a schedule for certain hours, some organizations allow you to pick up service hours whenever it’s convenient for you. You can sign up to serve a meal at the City Mission a month in advance or later today with no further commitments. You can pick a day to work with Habitat for Humanity and make a visible impact in just one shift.
Even if you don’t feel like leaving the house, you can still find ways to serve. Zooniverse is an online citizen science portal where you can help real researchers do real research. There are 69 projects currently open on the platform with topics ranging from history to biology and simple and complex tasks to match whatever level of challenge you’re looking for. If you need some extra space, you can work directly with NASA on one of its many citizen science projects. These online volunteer projects are easy to pick up and put down, which makes them great to do between classes or instead of opening Instagram for the 20th time in the past three hours.
Service is kindness. It helps those around you, but it helps you too. Nothing feels better than striking up a chat with the person you’re serving dinner at the City Mission, watching the side of a house go up with Habitat for Humanity, or even just learning about a new type of snail in your Zooniverse project. So this year, make yourself better by helping others.
