I did not know the value of volunteering until my late 20s. Either I was never exposed to it, or I was a bit too self-centered to "give up my time." (I hate to say, I think it's the latter).
However, since the late 90s I have found many amazing organizations - if I could work with them all, I could. They are generally Seattle, grass-roots non-profits that I have been involved with in some way, or would like to be. Please check out the info below and visit their websites to find out more.
I've been volunteering as a camp counselor at Camp Ten Trees since the summer of 2001 - it's been an amazing, life-changing experience. Right now (Fall 2006) I am helping them by coordinating their transition from 2-week camp to year-round, non profit organization. It's actually my senior project. I can't say enough about this place. Oh, and it's where I met the love of my life, Cristopher. I owe camp a lot. J Here's some more info:
Camp Ten Trees features one week for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, and one week for the children of LGBTQ families.
At Camp Ten Trees, children and youth build self-confidence and strength in diversity in an environment which challenges homophobia and provides a range of traditional camp activities.
I volunteered with Home Alive for about five years. It's a Seattle based anti-violence project that offers affordable self defense classes, provides public education and awareness, and leads local community organizing efforts. "We believe violence prevention is a community responsibility as well as an individual issue. Our work in self defense encourages everyone to recognize their entitlement to the basic human right to live free from violence and hate. Our goal is to build a cultural and social movement that puts violence in a context of political, economic and social oppression and frames safety as a human right. "
"While the violence was individual, the only solution was collective action."
--Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Key Note presentation UC Berkley, "Boundaries In Question" 2000 Conference
Home Alive assists in accomplishing long-term social change by providing classes, workshops, education and events from a framework of anti-oppression and movement building. Throughout our organization and programming, we integrate a belief that violence stems from power imbalances related to such things as gender, class, race and sexual orientation. Through our classes, events and education we shift people¹s perspectives from focusing on safety as an individual concern to seeing violence prevention as a part of collective action.
