These days, similar to when Donald Trump was elected, many new volunteer applications are coming in. I know it won’t last long, and we will struggle to fill the shifts again in several months.

Most people who want to volunteer their time to protect abortion rights are people who want to give and who do not expect to be showered with praise for doing it.

However, I still come across volunteers who … I struggle to describe what bothers me; I observed similar behavior before and can’t really put a right world on it. For example, after hearing me talking about MAC hosting, one lady started asking me “whether I ever had any negative experience with clients.” I wanted to tell her that, at the moment, there is a six-month waiting list for MAC volunteers, so she should not bother, but I decided against it.  

I met a couple of other new escorts (I do not want to profile them, though I desperately want :)) who also behaved like their presence there is the best gift; and now it’s OK to sit in a folding chair for most of the shift and talk on the phone and do nothing just when our shifts are becoming more and more stressful. I blogged about similar encounters in the youth shelter before, so that’s no news. It stinks that you can’t filter out such people before they start volunteering. Time is spent training and onboarding them, and other people are waiting, and such volunteers are of no use. 

I also remember how once, when I was blogging in my Russian blog about the youth shelter, some people reacted to my stories as “these youth are ungrateful, demanding, make you feel guilty” and other nonsense of the same kind.

To summarize: people are right when they say that volunteering is rewarding. But it is rewarding not because others say “thank you,” but because you are giving whatever you can to other people or a good cause. Volunteering is a privilege. And even though you try your best to give, nobody is obligated to accept. Giving is rewarding, not hearing “thank you” in return (although it’s always nice to hear :)).