My Volunteering Experience

(Draft 3, final correction)

I live in a rural area and I don’t have any developed infrastructure such as grocery stores, banks, pharmacies, libraries, hospitals, and gas stations. So one day my husband decided to move to the closest city, which is located 30 km away, in hopes of finding a job for me and reducing his commute.

It was January 2016. We rented an apartment in the centre of the city. The location was perfect because I could reach any place on foot in 5-10 minutes. After a few months of living there I started to think about finding a job. I sent my resume to two grocery stores but did not get any responses. One day, I met our neighbor, who suggested that I find some volunteer work. She sad that there was a thrift shop (in my country of origin we call it second hand) in the city looking for volunteers. I went there the next day, talked to the general manager, and left my application. I started working there after three days, from Monday to Friday, from 12 am to 4pm. Every day there was a new team of four to five people. So I met around 20-25 new people just during one week. In that team was one woman from Japan, one from Vietnam, and a few people with German, Russian, and Ukrainian backgrounds. The oldest member of the team was 92 years old.

The business model of our store was to receive donations from people, set low prices, and sell it. We sold everything: adult clothes, kid’s clothes, shoes, kitchenware, books, DVDs, wall pictures, toys, different accessories. That was an interesting but very intense job because we had to process a lot of donations every day!

My main responsibilities were: receiving donations, sorting, and putting clothes on hungers. Despite the intense work, we always had some time for a break and drinking tea or coffee, gossiping, exchanging recipes, and joking. I had worked for three summer month before we came back to our rural area. I often miss my volunteering job. And now when I go to the city for any reason I always visit that thrift shop just to say “Hello”.

I would say that was a simple but a very useful job. I got some benefits since working as a volunteer, such as meeting new people and friends, understanding team work better, becoming more self-confident, and improving my language skills.

P.S. Here is the latest good news which I had heard about the thrift shop. Approximately 1,120 square feet will be added to the back of existing building because donations have progressively increased over the past five years and there is no room to store all the items received!