Personal Narrative: A Career As A Volunteer

Volunteering is a perfect way to get involved in the community. It not only helps the organization itself but it also gives you the opportunity to get experience in the different sectors. Volunteers give out their personal time to the community without being paid and that is exactly what I got to do in one of my classes I am enrolled in at Brock University (SPMA 1P92). All students were asked to complete eight hours of volunteer work with a sport organization. I decided to complete my hours for the Niagara Rapids Volleyball Club in St. Catharines. Throughout this paper, I am going to talk about the organization itself and the roles I took on. I am also going to talk about how this volunteer experience will benefit me in my future career. This
I had the chance to work with adults and children. At the start of the day the very first thing that came to mind was that maybe I could eventually be working for the OVA. I was so excited to see what it would be like to be in the shoes of someone who does something I may want to pursue in life. I personally feel like I had an impact on many people throughout the day. There were over fifty 13u girls trying out and I could tell many were extremely nervous and intimidated by the other girls. So, as a volunteer I felt like it was my responsibility to make them feel welcomed and comfortable in that environment. When athletes arrived, I would try and look for girls who looked lost or nervous and I would introduce myself to make them feel more welcomed and sometimes I would even ask if they wanted to warm up with me until they found a partner. By doing that I hope I made them feel more comfortable in the surroundings. I also feel like I may have impacted some of the young girls when I was in the gym helping the coaches. Whenever I saw something wrong I would pull aside the girl/girls and try and fix their technique, which should hopefully help them in the future. Personally, I did not have any specific questions going into this volunteer experience. Since I have been playing volleyball for 6 years I felt confident with the roles I took on. The
I was so honoured that they had so much trust in me throughout the day. After being taught how to register athletes, they left me alone and which allowed me take charge. It just surprised me because I felt like they were putting a lot on the line in case I messed up, because that may have caused a lot of stress and confusion. It also surprised me how much the coaches allowed me to get involved with the athletes by demonstrating drills and interacting with the players. They also allowed me to put in input with some of the drills they ran which validated how much I knew and how confident I am with my skills. There was truly nothing that disappointed me during the day. The tryouts were very organized by spacing everything out because of the number of athletes who attended tryouts that day, they had all the registration papers ready to be filled out and they had all the t-shirts laid out in the cafeteria. Also, everyone who was at the tryouts respected me as a volunteer which made me feel more comfortable in that