The Coast’s get involved guide

Right here, right at the beginning, this is the part of the guide
where I beseech you to reach into your inner self and find that true
heart of goodness that sits at your very core, your soul, right
next to your spleen, I think, and to connect that true heart of
goodness to those around you, the wider community, making the community
a better place, and with the added benefit of bringing spiritual
fulfillment to your own life. There are probably a bunch of Buddhist
terms to explain the whole process, and I’d use them, if I knew what
they were. Really, I would.

I mean, you no doubt have your reasons for finding something
worthwhile to do. Maybe you truly are one of those people who just
wants to do good by somebody. Maybe you want to build your resume or
you’ve got some career networking angle. Maybe you want to find a date.
Maybe you’re just bored and want to get out of the house. Like the kids
say: it’s all good. Fact is, we’d just annoy each other if we
started talking about it.

So let’s cut to the chase, eh? There are a bunch of people out there
who don’t need this guide—they go to mysterious meetings on Sunday
mornings, have learned the secret handshakes and are regularly
contacted via phone trees and internet listserves to go assist some
horribly diseased widow across town who needs help feeding her 37 kids.
Good on them. This guide ain’t for them.

This guide is for you slackers and semi-slackers—I use the term
with respect, having spent more than a little time propped up at the
west end of the bar—who vaguely feel you ought to do something
worthwhile, or at least interesting, or to find some way you can get
plugged into the community, but you aren’t quite sure exactly how that
might happen and you’ve never gotten around to researching it
yourselves.

So, I’ve got a few suggestions. It’s not a big deal—no conversions
required, and I’m aware that you might guard your time. Entire sections
of what follows may not interest you, and that’s cool too. And this
list is by no means complete—there are lots of organizations and
opportunities out there I’ve overlooked, forgotten about or have been
unable to connect with for one reason or another. But, come on, there’s
got to be something here you can do.

Festivals

Let’s start easy. You can pony up a few hours of your time, once,
and be done with it, by hooking up with one of the many groups
sponsoring festivals in Halifax. Each needs the full spectrum of set-up
people, program sellers, ushers, concessions workers, gofers, drivers,
etc.

The Atlantic Film Festival (420-4799) needs up to 300 people
at a shot for four annual festivals, but also needs people to work in
the office throughout the year, like even right now.

Besides the usual throng of volunteers, the Halifax International
Busker Festival (in August, buskers.ca will be updated soon) has a need
for people with baby-sitting certificates or who have had background
checks to work the new children’s area during 10am-2pm matinees.

The Atlantic Jazz Festival (second weekend in July, contact
Phil Theriault, phil@jazzeast.com) gives those who
volunteer 16 hours a free festival pass.

Go North! (Eryn Foster, 425-6412), the north end arts
festival scheduled this year for September 12, needs people this year
to help out with planning and organizing the festival. That means going
to meetings, helping out with fundraising and doing outreach. They’ll
also need people to poster, and on the day of the festival, people with
specific knowledge of the north end arts scene, tour guides, etc.

Halifax Pop Explosion (this year, October 10-14, volunteer@halifaxpopexplosion.com)
needs upwards of 150 volunteers for postering, stuffing bags, taking
tix, etc., but specially prized are “technical people”—if you know
how to plug in a mic, you’re hot property—and, for ferrying musicians
back and forth from the airport in rent-a-vans, people over 25 and with
a clean driving record.

Cultural organizations

You could get involved with the more permanent, year-round cultural
organizations. The time commitment is generally longer-term and on a
more regular basis than one-shot festivals, but organizations will vary
in how much they ask of you. If it’s not clear, call and
ask—nobody wants to burn you out.

Pier 21 (Joanna Veale, 425-7770, ext. 237), for example, uses
volunteers as labourers, tour guides, ticket sellers and in the gift
shop. If you’re up to the task, they also need people to work in their
research centre and to conduct oral history interviews. Right now
there’s a specific need for someone with graphic design skills. Most
people commit about three hours a week, but some do more.

Eyelevel Gallery on Gottingen (Eryn Foster, 425-6412) needs
people to paint and clean the space between shows, as well as to
gallery sit and to work at receptions and openings. There’s also
on-going committee work for programming and fundraising.

Symphony Nova Scotia (421-1300) needs on-call volunteers for
concerts. Right now they badly need volunteer receptionists—people
with basic computer skills who can commit to one morning or afternoon
per week.

Shakespeare by the Sea (422-0295) will operate this year from
July 1 through September 6. They need people to work the front of the
house as greeters, selling tickets and working the concession stand.
You can commit to as little as a single night, although some work right
through the summer.

One of the more exciting volunteer opportunities available in
Halifax is to get a show at community radio station CKDU (494-6479). Although based on the Dal campus, the station is open to
anyone. The way it works is you sign up for five training sessions to
learn how to use the equipment, and prove your commitment by doing at
least five hours of behind-the-scenes work—filing CDs, writing PSAs,
that sort of thing. After you’re trained, you can get on air by filling
in a few spots. Then, you put together a 10-minute demo tape and if
it’s approved by station management you end up with your own weekly
show. There’s plenty of other off-air work that needs doing, too.

Activism & government

The world just ain’t right, ya know? But this is one of those
“interesting” times the Chinese supposedly curse each other with, and
with the economy in flux, climate change policy coming to a head and
the Americans uncharacteristically finding some semblance of political
sense, an extra nudge here or there might make an enormous difference.
Worth a try, anyway.

Of course, Halifax’s enviro heart is found at the Ecology Action
Centre (Charlene Boyce-Young, 442-0198), and there are so many
different ways to volunteer there it’d take a phone book to list them
all—they range from office and phone work to helping with one-shot
events to more hands-on committee work devoted to specific
environmental issues, helping to develop policy. There’s an immediate
need for handymen and women, and people to help with construction
issues related to the EAC’s new Fern Lane home. I’ve been around EAC
enough to know that if you have any environmental interest whatsoever,
there’s a place for you there.

In addition to the usual gamut of office help, fundraising, etc.,
the Nova Scotia Nature Trust (425-5263) has a neat little
volunteer opening for rare plant monitors. You’ll be asked to visit the
site of a threatened plant species (mostly in southwestern Nova Scotia)
during the flowering season between July and September and record data
on the plants and its habitat. No experience is necessary—the Trust
will train you. At least one annual visit is required, but multiple
visits are encouraged. Sounds like a good excuse to get out of
town.

On the war and peace front, the Halifax Peace Coalition (Chris Maxwell, 496-9209) needs people for postering, phone calling,
etc. They’re always looking for people with expertise on some aspect of
geopolitical conflict to write commentaries and speak at events. Right
now, they need someone with some website design skills. And let’s not
overlook the most basic need: become a body at a demonstration, another
citizen whose very presence speaks against militarism—and for
peace.

If you’re the entrepreneurial sort, there’s an opportunity to put
your stamp on the “newly restarting” Halifax chapter of the Council
for Canadians (Angela Giles, 422-7811). Like the national
organization, the local folks will be concentrating on public policy
issues and research, but it’s wide open in terms of which issues in
particular get attention. Got an issue? Here’s an excellent opportunity
to get people interested.

A step further in the activism direction is the Nova Scotia
Public Interest Research Group (NSPIRG, contact Angela or Asa,
494-6662). The organization, primarily funded through Dal student fees
but open to the broader community, proudly “seeks social and
environmental justice through radical social change” and has several
campaigns to that end: save Lincolnville, Resist Atlantica, rooting out
racism in schools. They are also organizing a media cooperative.

Or, if in-your-face activism is more your style, consider the
Halifax Coalition Against Poverty (444-5060). HCAP is fearless,
and takes the fight right to the cause of the problem: They’ve picketed
a provincial minister’s house in the early morning to make a point
about social housing funding, have sat in government offices to draw
attention to adverse changes in emergency shelter policies and
regularly, directly confront landlords for violating housing laws.

You might also give consideration to becoming part of government
itself. The people who sign up for the planning commissions and
municipal boards are the unsung heroes of local government—they often
bring fresh ideas and new perspectives to a venue that isn’t usually
conducive to either. It takes a special kind of person to navigate
through the bureaucracy; it requires immense patience, a tolerance for
bullshit and an almost perverse attention to detail. Still, the rewards
come by way of a community that’s slightly better than the one without
you—I recommend it.

HRM has volunteer members on more than 50 boards and
commissions—ranging from the Bikeways Advisory Committee to
several watershed advisory committees to the Natal Day Steering
Committee to transit and urban design advisory committees (see
halifax.ca/boardscom for
contact info and details of what’s needed). Volunteers are asked to
fill out a short form detailing their experience and interests, and
regional council typically makes appointments in November, although
vacancies that come up through the year are filled by reviewing new
applications.

For the ultimate in meta-bureaucratic volunteerism, the provincial
government has nine “non-partisan advisory committees” that assess
candidates who have applied to become members of “ajudicative boards.”
And what are ajudicative boards? Glad you asked. According to the
provincial website (gov.ns.ca/exec_council/AdvisoryCommittees),
adjudicative boards are “agencies, boards, and commissions (‘ABCs’)
with quasi-judicial functions; these boards take evidence, make
findings of fact and law, and make decisions affecting a person’s
liberty, security or legal rights.” In other words, you know that
bastard with the clipboard and attitude on the other side of the
bulletproof glass? You get to appoint the people who can overrule his
petty, bureaucratic ass. The advisory committees include 18 “lay” (sic)
people, and your first test for becoming a member of such an
inside-baseball committee is to figure out how to apply. I’m an
experienced journalist with computer resources and provincial contacts
at my disposal, and I couldn’t figure it out, so if you can master the
challenge you deserve the appointment.

Kids & Sports

You can always work with kids. They can be fun, or at least amusing,
and they haven’t yet learned that we adults are just as clueless as
they are, so you get to play the role of the wise elder. More
pragmatically, these little people will one day grow up and either mug
you in the Common or operate on you in the emergency room, so it’s a
worthy investment of time to try to steer them in the more responsible
direction.

Probably what kids need most in their lives is simply people who
aren’t crazy. If you fit the description, you might consider becoming a
Big Brother or Big Sister (466-5437). The organization
will match you with a youngster, age seven through teenager, give you a
bit of training and the two of you will then embark on a friendship and
take that wherever it goes. This can be a stress-free relationship,
basically a once-a-week or every-other-week meeting, and you go hang
out in parks or the movies, whatever. Basically, you’re a needed adult
presence in a kid’s life—a mentor and model.

The Learning Disabilities Association of Nova Scotia (Megan
MacLeod, 423-2850) needs literacy instructors for kids who are one or
two years behind on their reading and writing skills. What I really
like about this org is they are very specific about what they need from
volunteers: one hour two nights a week for 10 weeks, at either a south
end or Dartmouth location. The work consists of one-on-one instruction
guided through a “research based program” that will be explained to you
when you join up. The spring session starts in April.

There are dozens of provincial sporting organizations listed on the
Sport Nova Scotia website (sportnovascotia.ca, “who we are”),
which in turn will list hundreds of local clubs—they range from the
predictable hockey and swimming clubs to the Metro Minor Lacrosse
League and the Halifax Hustlers Orienteering Club.

These clubs typically consist of parents and people who grew up in
the sport, maybe right there with the club. But there is an enormous
amount of work that goes into these operations, and almost all of it is
volunteer work—you’d be most welcome if you could lend a hand, even
if—especially if—your own spawn isn’t out there on the field
or ice.

The work ranges from officiating to hauling buckets to water the ice
to driving to meets to whatever. Time commitments will vary with
seasons and needs of the particular club. Be warned that clubs often
are stressed for time and, I’ve discovered, don’t immediately return
phone calls. But that’s evidence of their great need for your help.

Charitable organizations

This is the catch-all category for the old-fashioned service groups,
the bread-and-butter charities that make society decent. Without them,
we’d be a soulless black hole of a place, like Afghanistan or the
United States. They fill in the gaps in the safety net and remind us of
our responsibilities to our fellow humans.

Top of the list in these hard times is Feed Nova Scotia (457-1900), the food bank for the province. The political and economic
issues surrounding hunger are solvable, and it’s a sad commentary on
our society that they’re not being addressed. But in the meantime,
we’ve got to take care of the people in need, and there are dozens of
places for people to help out. Feed Nova Scotia sent me a long list of
volunteer positions, ranging from warehouse workers to drivers to
events coordinators to office help. Training is provided, and there’s
no minimum time commitment, except for HELPLINE workers, who work the
phones connecting hungry people to the organization; these volunteers
are asked to commit to at least four hours a week for six months.

The Heart & Stroke Foundation (423-7530, ext. 304, Megan
Foster) is conducting its annual Heart Month fundraising drive in
February. This is easy work, a total time commitment of two to four
hours for the entire month. Simply call and say you want to help, and
they’ll assign you a door-knocking route in your neighbourhood and send
you the materials.

The Metropolitan Immigrant Settlement Association (422-2937,
ext. 299) always needs volunteer literacy tutors for recent immigrants
who need help with speaking, reading or writing English. The immigrants
have a range of ability, from “fresh off the boat” to simply polishing
up some skills before entering college. But this is easy on
volunteers—you’ll go through a short training session, and then be
matched with an immigrant depending upon what you’re comfortable with.
From there, you’ll generally work an hour or two a week one-one-one for
a few months.

A less publicized volunteer opportunity rests with VoicePrint (444-7538), an organization that provides “accessible secondary audio”
on CBC’s Newsworld, via satellite and on a website. In short, your
voice will be recorded for the tens of thousands of people across
Canada who for one reason or another—they’re blind, have a physical
disability or are illiterate—can’t watch television news or read the
newspaper. No special skills are required and they’ll train you to use
the equipment, but it helps if you have a good speaking voice, above
average reading ability and an interest in news and current affairs.
You’re asked to commit to one to four two-hour sessions per month;
you’ll come and produce a 30-minute newscast, which will be completely
in your hands—from selecting the article, being the voice and doing
editing and post-production.

As I’ve noted, this is a scattershot list, far from complete. There
are all sorts of good work being done by all sorts of good
organizations, and if they send me their information (news@thecoast.ca) I’d be most happy to
add it to an ever-growing volunteer list on The Coast website.

But it’s a start. Enough to get the rest of you slackers out the
door.

This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2009.