At this year’s Question Box service, someone asked: “How can we ensure Follen keeps its volunteer spirit and members don’t become customers in today’s busy culture?”

This National Volunteer Month, Ministerial Intern Nate responds:

Follen’s volunteerism is incredibly impressive, especially considering the times in which we live. In the 2020s, most adults have jobs— often more than one. The hours not occupied by work are few and precious. Choosing to use those hours to volunteer in your community is a serious and very generous commitment. I think that if we want to keep Follen’s volunteer spirit alive, we have to be very aware of how much is being asked of volunteers and make sure we’re creating a culture where volunteering feels worthwhile to the people doing it.

That might mean building strong social connections in a volunteer group, or making sure the whole community is aware of and able to celebrate the work being done. Most of all, I think we can all practice gratitude, loudly and openly. Gratitude is the opposite of greed, and everything we do to center gratitude in our community helps to keep the consumerism of the wider world at bay.