My Nonprofit Reviews

I discovered Pathways To Volunteering (PTV) through the meetup events. My first volunteer was at LA Food Bank, then, I volunteer for the Veterans Holiday Celebration (VHC), where in this event I finally met Craig Shinmon, the Founder/Program Coordinator of the PTV. He shared me his experiences when he visited some Asian countries and he was also informed me the upcoming activities at PTV. From his sharing, I could tell that he has passions in helping/serving people in need and would like to encourage people to join him and feel the remarkable experience in helping people. No matter how big or small you could participate in, you would learn new things and it’s priceless.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the volunteer events I like to join was the VHC event. The reason I like to participate in this event because I think even though the veterans are no longer on active duty, but the men and women who have served this country deserve praise. My tasks were assisting with seating and serving food for the veterans and their families. The most exciting part when I did this tasks was when they’re sharing their incredible stories especially when they’re on active duty, far away from their families. I was amazed and learned a lot from their stories.
The other volunteer activity I would like to share was when I involved in Junior’s blind holiday carnival. They transformed the gymnasium into a winter wonderland for the family member of all ages to enjoy the activities. At that time, I got in charged on the smashing can game. Although most of the kids were visually impaired/disability, but they could play all of the games pretty well. I was so happy and cheerful could be able to assist the kids playing, and at the same time felt touched by their spirits and their families support. Sometimes we’re still complaining about life, we don’t appreciate what we already have, and easily give up. When I assisted the kids, I was ashamed of myself and I thought I should learn by the spirit of those beautiful kids: Never complaints and never give up! Be tough, be happy!

Of course, there’s a lot more volunteer activities stories that I can’t share them all here. The next volunteer activity that I had signed up is Junior’s Blind Olympics. Volunteers will serve as Coaches and Coach Assistants to be paired with partial or blind athletes from the Western region of The United States. Even though the event started pretty early, but I am so excited for this event. It will be another incredible moment of my life that I will learn from this event.

If you want to volunteer but don’t know where to start yet, please come out and join us, Pathways To Volunteering. There’s a different kind of activities that you could participate in. Once you sign up for the events that you're interested in, Craig will email you the detail information of the event and when the date is getting closer, he will update you all the information you need to know. Feel free to ask him if you have any questions/concerns. So far, I have good experience in joining PTV. Craig has never let us down. He cares people more than he cares himself. For example at the volunteer event, even though Craig is busy, but he has never forgotten to check on the volunteers to make sure if everything is ok. If he can’t come to the event because there’s another event he has to help, he always asks someone like Terry to be a leader on the team and check on us to make sure if everything is fine. Both Craig and Terry like to remind us if we’re tired, we can take a rest and have lunch. They would find someone to replace us while we're gone for rest. It’s really grateful to have this nice team. I've never felt awkward to work together with other volunteers on this team. Even though I just met once with some of the volunteers, but it feels like we are a family who cares for each other.