Unlike putting hours into a place of employment where one gets paid for the work they do, volunteering has a payment plan that’s entirely different.  Instead of monetary gain, what a volunteer gets out of the experience depends entirely on the attitude of the person.  Some volunteers do it as a means of paying back to the community while others may do it as a means to earn valuable work-related experience added to a resume as a means to access better employment opportunities.  Whatever the reasoning is behind volunteering work, for as long as the heart is put into it then there will always be a great reward coming out of it.  Again, it may not be a monetary one, but the feel-good experience could very well be something to last a lifetime.

However, if one is volunteering simply to look good or has ulterior motives that have nothing to do with simply catering to members of the community who can use a helping hand, then there will be no real reward coming from that.  The best volunteers are people who dedicate their time and energy to something because they want to do it.  They couldn’t care less about any gain whatsoever or what it will do for their reputation.  Volunteers who genuinely care about being a valuable service to people are among the best folks in the community as this is usually someone who will even volunteer their time to help a neighbor who is in need, sometimes even doing so without asking.

Being a volunteer doesn’t always mean dedicating several hours a week to some kind of project that is in need of volunteers.  Simply put, volunteering means setting even just a couple of minutes of your time aside to help someone in need.  Something as simple as volunteering to help someone struggling to carry their groceries from the store’s exit to their car counts.