The Benefits Of Volunteering With Seniors In Your Community
Family caregivers, professional caregivers, friends, and relatives can all benefit from volunteering in their communities with senior loved ones and clients. It’s a rewarding way to connect with the seniors in your life while also bettering the community you live in.
Why Volunteer
Many people view volunteering as a selfless act. While people need a certain level of selflessness to be successful volunteers, volunteering provides just as many benefits to the individual as it does to the community the individual serves.
Reduces Loneliness And Isolation
Volunteering is a great opportunity for loved ones and caregivers to work alongside the seniors in their lives doing something that can positively affect the community. In doing so, they also reap the benefit of social interaction, which reduces feelings of loneliness and isolation. Sometimes that feeling to “just get out of the house” comes from the need to feel less alone and isolated. What better reason to stay connected with others than to help or work alongside senior fellow residents?
Sense Of Purpose
Many people become invested in their careers or their family positions because it gives them a sense of purpose. If you have a job or a family you’re caring for, that position gives you something to work toward and work for.
Once seniors reach retirement age and their children move away to start their own families, it’s common to feel a loss of purpose. Some seniors feel like they aren’t needed and are lost without a structured day to fall back on.
Volunteering can help seniors regain that sense of purpose. Tons of volunteering opportunities play on skills a senior may have developed through their career. When you volunteer alongside a senior, you can learn about their work before retirement and how it applies to your volunteer work.
Teaches New Skills
You’re never too old to learn something new. Volunteering is similar to starting a new position at a job. There are some learning curves as you develop new skills and learn different processes. As a family caregiver or loved one of a senior, the two of you can enter a volunteer opportunity and enjoy learning something together.
Promote Physical Activity
About 30 percent of seniors are inactive beyond the movements they need to make to complete daily tasks. There could be several reasons for this, but a major reason is that many seniors don’t have a reason to leave the house and do anything active.
Volunteering gives seniors a reason to get outside, explore new places, and interact with new people. Even if a volunteer opportunity doesn’t require physical labor, simply walking and getting out of the house for a few hours a week can positively impact a senior's physical and mental well-being.
Volunteer Options In Grand Junction
There are many great volunteering opportunities through Grand Junction and the surrounding communities for you and the seniors in your life to get involved with. Mesa County R.S.V.P. (Retired. & Senior Volunteer Program) is an excellent local resource that connects older adults (55 years and above) with volunteer opportunities throughout the Grand Valley that fit their skills and abilities. They can assist you with long-term or one-off options that work on your own schedule. This is a great place to start your volunteering journey in our local area!
Mesa County Libraries needs volunteers for a variety of tasks including managing the Discovery Garden and restocking shelves, among many other things. Volunteers can help out at any one of the branch locations.
If you are an animal lover, work with animals and help them prepare for their new forever homes at the Roice-Hurst Humane Society.
Helping Seniors At Visiting Angels
At Visiting Angels, we’re dedicated to helping senior clients find ways to engage with their communities and lead quality lives full of purpose. Community involvement is a priority to us at Visiting Angels of Grand Junction. Find out more about how our team supports this initiative by getting to know us better.
Call us at 970-254-8888 so we can talk more today!