National Volunteering Week: Saying thanks to those who support their community amidst the pandemic

Volunteers have remained on the frontline during the COVID-19 pandemic, whether it be packaging food for those in need, or checking in on the vulnerable. This National Volunteer Week, the community is being asked to recognise that although volunteers have been forced to adapt, their contribution has been as important as ever.

Former Socceroos captain and volunteering advocate Craig Foster Source: AAP

Craig Foster is a former international football player, and is a football analyst for SBS.

 

But with most sport on hiatus around the world, Mr Foster has turned his attention to volunteering, establishing the Play for Lives initiative. Mr Foster is asking sporting organisations to mobilise members and athletes to volunteer the time they would have otherwise spend training or playing, to help people most in need.

"It was an opportunity for sport to fulfill its social obligation, and its responsibility to rest of society, which I feel particularly strongly about. And for sport, given that it was going to be idle, for at least a period of months, and all of us, including me, I'm an amateur footballer now playing on a Sunday afternoon, we were going to have that season at least postponed. And it was an opportunity to repurpose that time and to put ourselves and the sporting community at the service of Australia." Mr Foster said. 

This week (May 18-24), is National Volunteer Week. 

Mr Foster recalls that during his time as a professional footballer, volunteers were the bedrock of many football clubs and that contributing to sporting clubs and organisations was a way of life. The former Socceroo believes that trend changed, and he hopes that volunteers are recognised this week for the work they do, and that more people decide to contribute their time.

''The connection between human beings, and in particular, helping others - just doing something today to help someone who needs it, is actually the foundation of society. Human beings cannot live alone, we are social beings. But in recent decades the trend has been more towards individualism, more towards materialism, more towards just me, about I, and me, and not necessarily those around me - unless they can help me in some way.'' he said.

About a third of Australians volunteer their time each year, and there are 5.8 million volunteers throughout the country - at least, that's in an ordinary year.

But with bushfires, floods, and now the Covid-19 pandemic, volunteers have been leaned on like never before. Adriene Picone, the CEO of Volunteering Australia, says volunteers are valuable parts of the Australian community.

''Volunteering happens right across our community, in pretty well every pocket of our society, from the arts and education, emergency services, sport, community welfare. There's pretty well no pocket of our community that volunteering doesn't touch. What we find is that volunteering often goes unrecognised, unnoticed and undervalued. We think it's important to say thank you to volunteers every day, but in May each year we take that time to really acknowledge the contribution volunteers make and to say thank you'' noted Mrs Picone.

Wave your appreciation for volunteers, 18-24 May is National Volunteer Week Source: Volunteering Australia FB page

While there is a perception that most volunteers are retirees looking to lend a hand, Ms Picone says that isn't true, and that young people are one of the highest groups of volunteers, closely followed by people in their 30s and 40s. And Ms Picone says there is a group for everyone who wants to make a contribution.

''There is something out there for everybody, not matter what you're interested in. I think it's about finding something that you're passionate about - it's about a way of really making a difference to our community and leaving our world a bit better than we found it.''

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