Every parent who has retired remembers the last-minute requests for the odd number of cookies or the science project, which is on deadline. Believe it or not, filling those orders for the cookies and building a solar display – in a hurry – helped prepare you for the best part of retirement: volunteering.
All experts predict that more and more people will be joining the army of the retired over the next couple of decades. Most of them won’t retire totally, but will adjust their work hours, and perhaps change jobs. The result? There will be some spare hours to fill.
When a person has spent a lifetime with a routine, being faced with no set schedule can be baffling. You can only spend so much time on leisurely breakfasts, watching television in the daytime and calling friends, before you realize that you’ve got the rest of your life to do this.
No matter what kind of career people have had, from sawing boards to commanding a boardroom, they were a vital part of the work world – in other words, doing something worthwhile and necessary. They were needed.
Dozens, probably hundreds, of organizations need help. A retiree’s spare time can be put to use to benefit both the organization and the people it serves, and the retiree.
Hospitals, schools, agencies on aging, nonprofit organizations and many other entities have lists of tasks to be done, for which they depend on volunteers. Volunteers are needed and volunteering provides a real ego boost.
The ways to invest spare time are endless: reading to children, shopping, teaching, dog walking, writing, visiting seniors and/or children, selling, tour guiding, driving, cooking, serving on a municipal committee or board, working in a food pantry or soup kitchen – these are just a few of the tasks that depend on volunteers.
Twenty years ago, I got on the volunteer bandwagon in a small way. At the age of 50, I was still working full time as a marketing manager, but my only child was graduating from high school and leaving for military basic training, all in the same month.
As a single parent of one, this meant I’d have hours to fill. Those hours I’d spent helping with homework, baking cookies, getting clothes ready for school and endless Mom’s taxi trips, were about to end. I’d seen too many of my peers end up wailing about being alone and having nothing to do. Determined not to be one of the wailers, I decided it was time to find something to fill my spare time.
My home town was celebrating the 250th anniversary of its founding and I had been working on that committee for quite a while. This honed my interest in the history of my hometown. I wrote a few articles about history and people seemed interested. When the celebration was over, I decided to join the historical society.
The society needed a newsletter writer, and since my work life had been spent writing promotional material, I volunteered. Since then, my involvement with the historical society has grown to include at least eight to 10 hours a week spent on genealogy, archiving, preparing tours for school children and many other tasks.
I also joined the local library’s “Friends” group, and helped raise funds to support library programs, including summer reading. I volunteered to serve on the town’s newly founded Communication Committee as well as another group that was looking into the future of housing needs in town. When the library needed to be expanded, I volunteered to help on that committee, preparing a portfolio to help raise funds and obtain grants.
So far, I’ve managed to sidestep any involvement in groups other than local, but 20 years from my first signup, I can tell you there’s no shortage of ways to fill time. Today, I still work part time, but the rest of my time is spent with nonprofit groups.
Once you start investigating where your time can be best spent, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to fill up all of your spare time.
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