The spirit of volunteerism

Since it started in August 2001, Hands On Manila has stirred the spirit of 2,000 volunteers in the country.

"What makes volunteerism different from other good deeds is that it has a multiplier effect. The more people doing this, the more community spirit is created," said Hands On president Gianna Montinola.

For this summer, Hands On has come up with various projects that volunteers can chose from.

For example, there’s the Gym Buddies Program where volunteers can work out and exercise with pre-school children and young street children at any outlet of The Little Gym. Volunteers with free time on Wednesday and Friday can share their skills in arts and crafts with the Pangarap Shelter. Night owls can spend an evening with streetchildren being assisted by Childhope Asia Foundation. The pediatric ward at the Philippine General Hospital is always on the look out for storytellers.

In many cases, the volunteer donates not only his time but something in kind as well. For example, arts and craft volunteers will be asked to bring the materials needed as well. The night out at the Childhope Asia requires the volunteer to bring two sets of food for dinner that he/she can share with the children.

Flexible

"The Hands On concept is geared towards those people with busy schedules. As such, it attracts mostly young professionals. They can choose when they want to volunteer, how long they want to volunteer, where they want to volunteer," said Montinola.

All volunteers undergo some training or orientation before they are allowed to go to their desired projects. This process ensures that there will be no problems both for the volunteer as he would know what to expect and for the participating organization like the Manila Zoo.

Aside from working with individual volunteers, Hands On has also been dealing with corporations such as Gilette Phils., which has identified volunteer work as part of its corporate social responsibility.

"We are open to corporations which would want us to package their volunteer work activities," said Montinola. "Because of the logistics and time needed to coordinate all the volunteer activities, we can only work with three to five more companies which would be interested to tap Hands On Manila for their volunteer efforts."

Some corporations have shown their appreciation of volunteerism in other ways. For example,Hands On has entered into into a tie-up with Starbucks to make the public more aware of the value of volunteerism for the community.