Southwestern Ontario volunteers lead the way
Southwestern Ontario, take a bow.
When it comes to volunteering, nobody in Ontario does it better than the area that stretches from Windsor to Niagara and north to Owen Sound.
Not only does the wider London region boast the highest percentage of people in the province who volunteer, and especially for recreation and cultural activities, but its volunteers also put in substantially more hours.
“It’s much higher than the rest of the province,” said Andrea Cohen Barrack, chief executive of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the largest grant-making foundation in the province.
The profile on volunteering is part of a recent report by the foundation that looks at Ontario’s well-being, everything from its political engagement to its living standards.
It’s the first time the foundation has looked at different regions.
The information gleaned from the study will help decide where the foundation should allocate money for the greatest impact, Barrack said.
Other groups, such as municipalities, might also use the information when they’re crafting programs.
Why the London region, designated as the West in the report, has the highest percentage of volunteers isn’t known, she said.
The report said both the individual and the community benefit from volunteering.
Megan Zinn handles communications for London-based Jesse’s Journey, and has worked in the non-profit sector here for 10 years.
She confirms it’s “not super-difficult” to recruit volunteers in this area to help out with that organization’s events.
Paula Speevak, president of Volunteer Canada, a national group promoting volunteerism, said research has shown that volunteering not only benefits organizations and communities, but the person donating their time as well.
On average, people in the West region volunteered 38.6 hours a year for recreation and cultural organizations while the average for the province as a whole was 30.5 hours.
To understand why so many Londoners want to volunteer, just head over to LifeSpin, a low-income support agency where a solid group of volunteers spend their time helping every day.
These days, they’ve been putting together Christmas lists for families with an unmatched level of joy and friendship.
Maureen Caissie, 58, a volunteer at the agency for 13 years, first came to LifeSpin to get help with her disability pension application. She’d been a cook after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2001.
To give back, she volunteered to paint the agency’s Free Store. “The rest is history.”