I volunteer twice a week in a public school. I help with Kindergarten "learning stations" and second grade writing assignments. I also read with kids individually. I'm there for about two hours.

I'm also a volunteer with the Red Cross. I'm trained to open and work at shelters. I have been a volunteer with the Red Cross since Katrina and have been trained to work in special needs shelters since I am a nurse. I have not worked a shelter yet, but have been placed on standby. I could also help at the local chapter but have not done so.

I volunteer like a man possessed. Just today in fact I helped with our Save The Bridges campaign here in town to keep our heirloom bridges from being scrapped.

I circulated petition clipboards, answered questions, mugged for the media.

On my way there, I dropped some signage I'd made the night before (B of A, AIG - The United Snakes of America!) off for a B of A protest in another town.

I also do a lot of work for the Blue Ocean Society to preserve and protect the New England coastline.

I would say all of these endeavors embody far more of what I'd like to get paid for rather than what I've done (cubicle monkey work) in my career thusfar. I know my efforts are for worthy causes, it elevates my visibility in the community as a mentor and leader, and helps me circulating with other committed folks of right mind in town to get more done.

I think volunteerism is the finest thing one can do as a citizen, and not only that - but it helps put your personal problems in sharp relief and gets rid of your egotism in short order.

I volunteer regularly with my local community garden (as I think I've mentioned, oh, 2004 times). In one way it's an extension of my paid job as a health educator working with teens, in that I work alongside the teens that participate in their youth development program. However, I don't get to garden with the kids I work with! So that's really fun for me.

I volunteer occasionally with a local sustainable farming group, when they do their biannual farm tours. Basically a bunch of small, local farms open themselves up to the community. It's a fundraiser as well as educational activity for citizens to learn more about where their food comes from, etc.

I volunteer sporadically with Planned Parenthood, doing phone banking, mostly.

The first two I *love*, most likely because they're things I don't do at work. Planned Parenthood is awesome, too, of course, but I used to work there so it's less fun for me.

My better half is the Volunteer Coordinator at our local Humane Society/Shelter, so I've been volunteering there more and more lately. Mostly I work fundraising events, supervising youth/student volunteers and building whatever small construction projects they need.

Thanks folks, this is great, keep them coming! I already do some volunteer work related to my profession, but that's more national/regional. I want to do something useful in my own community (aside from rehearsing and performing music which while fun is of dubious utility).

I am a member of the auxiliary board of the local Red Cross organization. We're the Young Professionals fundraising bit. We plan parties, among other things.

I used to do more volunteer stuff (like defending juveniles, Obama for America, research for a local preservation group, food bank collection and packing) but I got burned out on life, generally, and fell out of it. But things didn't really get better until I got back involved with the auxiliary board. Funny that.

I volunteer at the animal shelter exercising and training dogs. I love getting to see the dogs progress and it's so wonderful to see them adopted out. As with most local programs, funding cuts mean they have less staff to work with the animals and it feels good to be able to fill the gap. Unlike other volunteer projects, I never leave feeling discouraged or frustrated.

Plus, there's bunnies!

My main volunteer project is leadership of our local Slow Food chapter. That involves a lot of communications and event planning, and we help publish a directly of local farms, run a CSA fair, do food pantry benefits, and stuff like that.

I also volunteer in professional service organizations - I'm on the education and interpretation committee of a national museum and historic site associatin, and also helped on the program committee this year. I sit on a liberal-arts advisory board for a local community college. I also am on the educational advisory board for an environmental-education program aboard a historic vessel.

For the community radio station I frequently serve as events volunteer. I used to be on the programming committee but had to give something up to launch Slow Food. I'd like to get back to radio in the next couple years.

And like LT I do the occasional beach cleanup, community service day, etc. Worked my bum off for Obama through summer and fall last year. And as part of my job I 'volunteer' our services out at events and programs - doing educational programming at no charge.

On my volunteer wish list: someday I'd like to do something with seniors - be a senior companion, help with shopping, etc. Also, I really miss environmental education sometimes and would like to be a volunteer naturalist at a coastal park and lead beach walks and salt-marsh explorations and the like.

My therapy work right now is volunteer, at two different agencies. Where I live now, there is very little paid work for pre-licensed therapists, but 3000 hours of supervised client-contact hours are required before one can apply for a license, so I've pretty much been forced into volunteering.

I love the work, I hate that it's volunteer; working for no pay makes me feel like the system is completely devaluing mental health care (which is, not uncoincidentally in my opinion, work that is disproportionately performed by women).

I will actually pick up litter and debris to a certain extent while I am out biking or hiking. Glass bottles in the middle of paved areas are a favorite. I think I will begin assigning points to various debris items and make more of a game of it. Hmmm. Yo holmes; three points for dah 40!

I used to do phone grief counselling. It was done from home, the main switchboard did some magic to divert the calls for each shift to whoever was manning the phones that shift.

I volunteer making websites for charities and helping their idiot fucking directors with stupid tech questions. I also volunteer at the charity shop twice a month, which is basically an excuse for OMG DISCOUNT.

This is how I roll.

I used to volunteer for the local SPCA shelter when I lived in Langley. I walked dogs, gave kitties free time (let them out of their cages) and cuddle and played with said kitties.

I want to get back into it but haven't gotten off my lazy bum.

I'm not currently volunteering anywhere, but hopefully this summer, I'll be returning to some of the places I've spent time in the past: RFB&D (recording textbooks for the blind and dyslexic), an animal shelter, and a soup kitchen.

I'm hoping to also find some time to work at 826 Valencia, but that's pretty far from where I live, and I don't know if the commute would be worth it. Maybe I'll find a similar program closer to home.

Oh, and I forgot to mention - I love volunteering. It helps me get out of my own head (see also what LT said about getting rid of egotism) and do something productive that I know is helping people and animals.

I volunteer quite a bit. A little less now that I am working and have the three children though. Right now I am volunteer Co-ordinator at the local school as well as volunteering in Food For Thought. A programme to deliver healthy snacks to school children using locally grown food as much as possible. I love volunteering and meeting people outside of my socioeconomic age group (because most of us stick to our own demograpic group). I use a lot of the same skills in my volunteering as I do in my real-life job; finding and organising information and educational children's programmes are two big ones.

I've been volunteering for this organisation since 1982 (I didn't make the site, so don't blame me). Perhaps not what most would call community service, but it's still volunteering.