"Many Hands": The Importance of Volunteers

By Jamie Schriner-Hooper
Organization Specialist
Michigan Main Street Center
Michigan State Housing Development Authority

So, it’s that time of year. The flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping and in-boxes are blowing up with requests to volunteer for every event imaginable. In the last two days, I’ve received requests to volunteer for several spring plantings and clean-ups, a festival, a golf outing, two poker tournaments, a bowling event and a few others. Granted, I do volunteer quite a bit, but even for me, this is a lot. I grew up volunteering or being “voluntold” as one of my favorite Scottville Main Street volunteers puts it. My mom taught my sisters and me that if you can help someone, you should. There will always be a point in your life when you need help, and better to have helped others when that point comes. Not only that, studies show that volunteers live longer than people who don’t volunteer. I’ve never seen a study on it, but I’m relatively sure that volunteers are also happier people!

As the former director of a Main Street program, I worked with and relied on volunteers to do the majority of the projects that were done in my community. Plain and simple, if they weren’t there doing the work, the work wouldn’t be done. That truly is the case with so many organizations around. So, you ask. How do you decide what to support and where to volunteer? Is it coaching your kid’s baseball team? Manning the neighborhood garage sale? Taking part in a walk for the American Cancer Society, Komen Foundation or other worthy cancer-fighting cause? Being a Big Brother or Big Sister? Sitting on a Main Street Committee? Well, the answer is, you have to decide what means the most to you, prioritize and find the things that you can and want to do, and then help to find volunteers and help for the things that you can’t support.

How, exactly, does this work? Take someone who would like to improve their downtown. They want it to look and smell nice, have interesting businesses that attract and serve visitors and are open during convenient times, have fun festivals and special events in the downtown and have people and funds to take care of all of those things. Well, that’s where Main Street comes in to play. Main Street® is a four-point approach that looks for volunteers to focus their efforts on one of four areas: design (looking nice), promotion (attracting people to the area), economic restructuring (ER) (having successful businesses) and organization (having the volunteers and funds to make everything happen). As much as we’d love to take care of all of those things on our own. Let’s be real. We may be control freaks but we simply can do all of those things on our own. Believe me. I’ve tried. Heck. I even made a career of it!

What the Main Street approach preaches is to pick one thing that you love and focus in on that thing. You may love festivals. You love planning them, finding sponsors, reserving the porta-potties, the hectic day-of set-up, managing volunteers and then the moment when you look out over the crowds and know that you’ve done a good thing. In your case, you should sit on the promotions committee. You may also think it is important that your downtown look pretty, so you might occasionally volunteer to plant flowers if you have a spare couple of hours or, better yet, pick up that piece of trash that you see when you’re walking down the street, but special events are really your thing. If you know a great gardener, architect, designer or someone with a talent for making things look good, encourage them to sit on the design committee. You definitely want great businesses in your downtown, but when you hear market analysis; your eyes start to glaze over. Well, we can definitely rule out the ER committee. However, you know an attorney or real estate agent who would definitely fit the bill. Or, if you know someone with a particular penchant for fundraising, organization committee it is!

What Main Street says is that the responsibility shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of one person. Many hands make light work. Plus, one person can not have the expertise that the hundreds of Main Street volunteers have. If they did, I can’t imagine the size of their hat! So, find what you truly love and what you’re good at. Focus in on that thing and then find others to help fill the other voids. Don’t forget, enjoy what you do and know that your help is truly appreciated!