How has volunteerism impacted you–what’s your story?

Hap­py Nation­al Vol­un­teer Week!
Accord­ing to the Points of Light web­site, “Nation­al Vol­un­teer Week, April 12–18, 2015, is about… tak­ing action and encour­ag­ing indi­vid­u­als and their respec­tive com­mu­ni­ties to be at the cen­ter of social change – dis­cov­er­ing and active­ly demon­strat­ing their col­lec­tive pow­er to make a difference.”
That sounds a whole lot like the mes­sage behind Be a Change­mak­er, don’t you think? I thought so, so I decid­ed to help spread the word about an ini­tia­tive asso­ci­at­ed with Nation­al Vol­un­teer Week called “What’s Your Sto­ry?” The pur­pose of that effort is to cel­e­brate peo­ple who are doing awe­some things and encour­age oth­ers to get involved. You can play along by shar­ing your sto­ry, tag­ging friends and ask­ing, “What’s Your Sto­ry?” and use #NVW2015 in hopes of get­ting #NVW2015 to trend on Twitter.
As for me per­son­al­ly, my most recent vol­un­teer work was yes­ter­day, help­ing to stuff 370+ attendee fold­ers, orga­niz­ing hand­outs, and get­ting pre­pared for the SCBWI West­ern Wash­ing­ton’s annu­al con­fer­ence for writ­ers and illus­tra­tors. It was hard work, and the group of a dozen or so of us were focused and busy for four hours, yet there were hugs, and laugh­ter, and dough­nuts, and it felt absolute­ly won­der­ful to be a part of. The con­fer­ence itself kicks off on Fri­day, and I’ll be busy par­tic­i­pat­ing in and vol­un­teer­ing at it for three days straight. It’s an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence every year. I can’t wait!
For more infor­ma­tion on Nation­al Vol­un­teer Week, the “What’s Your Sto­ry” cam­paign, or how you can play along on Twit­ter, Insta­gram, and/or Face­book, vis­it the Points of Light web page here.