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Volunteering at Volunteers of America
When Volunteers of America was founded in 1896, volunteerism derived
from a military context and to “volunteer” one’s time in service to
others was a full-time commitment. Our founders, Maud and Ballington
Booth, and other early members of our organization came to call
themselves Volunteers of America
because they volunteered their whole lives to help people in need. This
included - not only volunteering their time - but also their hearts,
their spirits and their professional prosperity.
Today, Volunteers of America helps more than 2 million people in over
400 communities in 46 states and the District of Columbia and Puerto
Rico through programs that are staffed by full-time, paid professionals
who have adopted this same ideal of service as their full-time mission.
However, that does not mean that we do not also depend on an army of
modern-day “volunteers” who offer their free time to support our
volunteer programs nationwide. In fact, in 2010 nearly 65,000 volunteers
devoted more than 1.3 million hours to hundreds of Volunteers of
America programs and activities nationwide – and we can always use more
volunteers!