When you make a gift of time, add a little love to make it more impactful!
One of the best gifts you can give someone is the gift of time. Can you recount all the wonderful ways someone has shown you love just by spending time with you? Your spouse taking a day off work on your special day to be with you, a friend staying an extra day while visiting your city just to be with you?
This week, you can try doing the same! Give the gift of your time and volunteer for a cause, it could be a one-off act of reading stories, cleaning up a school compound, cataloguing books for a library, teaching a child, chatting with elders or visiting patients in a hospital! If you can share your expertise in finance, HR, marketing, project management…your gift is much needed!
Yet, you may have wondered why your offer to gift your time and skill does not find enthusiastic takers. You want to teach kids from 5-6pm on a Saturday or want to spend an hour celebrating your birthday with your favourite pastime at a local home for elders. Did you try to find out if their schedule matches your availability? Wouldn’t you do that while fixing a date with your loved one? And, should you need to cancel your appointment, do you care to let them know in advance and try to arrange for a replacement?
Did you check if what you have to offer is something they really need or want? Do you know that sometimes just to make the time and space for you, they rearrange their schedule, they spend money on the art material or books or on refreshments or spare a key resource from another critical project to orient you and make you comfortable, they dedicate a field worker or special communicator to help you with translation? For you to teach a child remotely, its parents are likely to miss out on their daily work so that the child has access to their phone, an elder sibling may miss an online class as they share a device, or a mother misses work to be with her daughter for her safety!
Do put some love into your gift of time and be mindful of the effort and resources families and organisations put in to give you a good experience! With a little love, make your gift of time more productive, joyful and impactful! Happy volunteering!
Here is one opportunity to explore:
For more, write to us at gti@guidestarindia.org and we will connect you with our collaborators!
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