6 Great Reasons to Volunteer in Your Community

Over 17,000 volunteers make Twin Cities Habitat’s mission come to life each year, and there are probably 17,000 unique reasons for why they choose to volunteer. We’ve come up with six great reasons to volunteer in your community—see which ones resonate with you.

1. Volunteers make a big difference

It’s simple: volunteers matter. The Independent Sector calculates the value of volunteer time annually, and has determined that the estimated value of one volunteer hour in Minnesota is $26.40. At Twin Cities Habitat, volunteers complete over 30,000 volunteer days annually, which means they contribute over $6.3 million each year—just with their time! According to Independent Sector, in 2016 about 63 million US Americans gave 8 billion hours of volunteer service worth $193 billion. If volunteerism were a company, it would be worth more than corporations like Ford, AT&T, and Amazon.

2. The Need is Great

When you volunteer at a place like Twin Cities Habitat, you can rest assured that your time is meeting a greater need in the community. Throughout the Twin Cities, many families are in need of stable, safe, affordable housing. Here are a few facts from this year’s State of the State Housing Report:

• More than 1 in 4 Minnesota households — nearly 550,000 families— spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing
• Over the past 15 years, median rent has risen 9 percent, while the median renter income has fallen 11 percent.
• The homeownership gap between white households and households of color has risen to 37 percent, far above the national average of 25 percent.

3. Health benefits

Volunteering is good for your soul, but it’s also good for your physical and mental health, too. According to a review of research by the Corporation for National & Community Service.

4. Build relationships

Volunteering is a great way to build bonds with new friends or people you’ve known for a long time. Many different types of groups volunteer with Twin Cities Habitat and become a stronger team in the process—corporate groups, faith communities, civic organizations, school clubs, and regular crews.

You can get a group of women together for Women Build, volunteer with the Habitat Young Professionals Network, or create your own group for a birthday build (or any other special event). Or, you can sign up as an individual and make new friends on the build site, in the office, or at a ReStore. The possibilities are endless, but you’re bound to build relationships.

5. Everyone’s doing it

The Twin Cities is a region of big-hearted people who like to give back to their communities. In fact, the Twin Cities comes first in the nation for volunteers per capita, according to the Corporation for National & Community Service. More than one out of three Twin Cities residents volunteer, contributing an average of 31 volunteer hours per person per year. The largest areas for volunteering in the Twin Cities are collecting or distributing food, and tutoring or mentoring youth. Join in the fun!

6. Many ways to get involved

More and more, organizations are looking for ways to allow volunteers to match their volunteering with their skillsets. Many people associate Habitat for Humanity with swinging a hammer on a build site, but there are so many more ways to get involved. Here are just a few of our volunteer opportunities:

• Join a committee, like the Dedications Committee
• Help pick up donations as a ReStore Truck Assistant
• Work the front desk at our St. Paul office
• Help our marketing team as a Social Media Volunteer
• Bake cookies for other volunteers
• Help with direct outreach in the community
• Volunteer at events, like the Hard Hat & Black Tie gala
• Become a Habitat Housing Hero advocate
• Become a Neighborhood Family Partner to welcome new Habitat homeowners to your neighborhood

Need more reasons to volunteer in your community? Check out our volunteer page by clicking the button below: