Why Community History Matters in a Volunteer Orientation

In revamping Boys & Girls Clubs of Portland's volunteering system, I had the opportunity to take a ten-week course on the AmeriCorps VISTA site all about volunteers. I learned a great deal in the process, and one of the main things I took away from the course was the importance of a strong volunteer orientation. In our meeting with the Clubs to discuss the volunteering system today, though, I was given a perfect example of why one of the aspects of a strong orientation, the "Cause" section, includes the history and populations of the neighborhood.

Meeting with the Clubs on Volunteers

As part of my VISTA assignment this year, I was asked, along with my co-VISTA, to entirely revamp Boys & Girls Clubs of Portland's volunteering program. This has been a very exciting process over the last few months, and we were excited to hear that BGCP has put a new position in place to continue this process. Over the past month or so, we have been working with this new Coordinator of Program Collaborations and Volunteerism, Tonya Peshel. Tonya and I just finished meeting with two of our Boys & Girls Clubs to talk to them about their perception of the volunteering system as it stands and their vision of how the program can change to benefit the Clubs' operations.