Volunteering – April 2025
/April was a month of volunteering and training for some new activities in the upcoming months. I was glad to use my tree materials again at the Scouting event, find 23 puzzles for my dad as I volunteered twice with Friends of the Library (at a used book sale and sorting books for the next sale), talk to people visiting Nature Touch Tables as part of Earth Day, and do another month of Feeder Watch (citizen science). I also worked on the programs (planning, prep, and follow-up) for the Master Naturalist Chapter. I am looking forward to Butterfly House related volunteering beginning in May.
I am thinking about my motivations in volunteering. After I retired more than a decade ago, volunteer activities became one of the best sources of interaction with a broader range of people. That is still the case. I chose to become a Maryland Master Naturalist since I also wanted at least some of the volunteer work to be outdoors; becoming a Missouri Master Naturalist is the same. In Maryland, the reactions of school groups on field trip hikes, conversations with other volunteers before and afterward, and positive feedback from non-profits that organized the events were the appreciation/acknowledgment that what I was doing mattered. In Missouri, it is the same although there is the added dimension of the Master Naturalist Chapter. I’m not sure what I expect….it could just be more ‘icing on the cake’!
Volunteering is good for my community and for me too!
