By Sue McCullough
As I settle into my new position as the Volunteer Connection Coordinator with Foothills United Way, I am humbly reminded of the many reasons I love the work I do. During this transition period, I’ve realized that there are actually 133,900 reasons. I was elated to recently discover that the Boulder Metropolitan Statistical Area ranks fourth among the Top Five Mid-Size Cities for Volunteer Rate with a whopping 133,900 volunteers.
According to the 2011 Volunteering in America Report, 133,900 residents, or 44.8% of residents, volunteer. This translates to 16.2 million hours of service and $346.1 million of service contributed per year. In 2010, the national volunteer rate was 26.3 percent. The top four volunteer activities in our area included General Labor (29.6%), Prof/Management (24.3%), Fundraising (23.8%) and Tutoring/Teaching (21.3%). Statistics for this area were collected within the Boulder Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and are based on an average using 2007 to 2010 data.
Personally, I am especially proud of this accomplishment as I’ve spent the past 3+ years working to strengthen our community by connecting amazing volunteers to rewarding and meaningful opportunities. I feel that in some small way, I am able to contribute to this accomplishment by fostering the ethic of volunteerism in our community.
Foothills United Way’s Volunteer Connection supports almost 300 nonprofit and government programs that rely heavily on volunteers to fulfill their missions. We also support the over 30,000 individuals including youth, adults, families, businesses, corporate and service or social groups that utilize our resources annually, to connect with community programs that need volunteers.
This ranking does not simply happen without a community working together collectively. Thank you to the many volunteers that make a difference in our community every day. And thank you for giving me so many reasons to love the work I do! We are all extremely fortunate to be surrounded by such a generous volunteer community.
Sue McCullough is the Volunteer Connection Coordinator at Foothills United Way.
