Don’t volunteer to save souls or to meet hot girls or guys in an exotic land, recommends Susan Skog in her new book The Give-Back Solution: Create a Better World with Your Time, Talents, and Travel. Instead, give back to be a fuller person and to ease a little piece of suffering. She lists the “Dos and Don’ts” of service as a framework to inspire volunteers. 

“Every hour you give back,” Skog says, “will make the world a better place. And every volunteer is a peacemaker in his or her own right.”

This book is a helpful guide, offering advice on how to find the perfect volunteer match from more than 150 organizations, either by traveling or engaging at home, explanations of structural differences between organizations and agencies, checklists of the right questions to ask before you start, and suggestions for “re-entering” your world after over-seas experiences. She provides volunteers’ stories and offers tangible ideas for finding ways to contribute to a global and local community.

Skog says the Give-Back Movement is grassroots, hopeful, and connecting people from Kansas to Kenya.

“It’s big; it’s huge; and it’s transforming life as we know it. And you can be a part of it,” Skog says.

Time:
Barb Lehner, featured in Skog’s book, knows that nonjudgmental listening can have a positive impact on anyone who has been going through hardships. She is a trained compassionate listener. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Lehner helped start a phone tree to contact survivors so they would have someone to explain their frustrations and fears to. Once when one of the women Lehner was in contact with was in the hospital, her daughter answered Lehner’s call. “’Oh, are you the Barb that’s been calling my mom? It has made such a difference in her life!’”

When Dry Creek R&S learned that a new group of homeschoolers was starting its own Roots & Shoots group nearby, they wanted to help them get started. Having felt a little isolated as a family group when Dry Creek R&S first started, they are now mentoring the new group, partnering on projects and showing them the resources Roots & Shoots provides. Find out more about their mentoring work.

Talents:
Voz is a Portland-based NGO that works for immigrant rights. Lindsay Saperstone, also featured in Skog’s book, saw a CraigsList posting for the organization as they were looking for someone who knew how to use a certain software, which she did. She had just graduated from college and wanted a way to connect to the Portland community. It’s a cause she feels passionate about and is glad she can donate her skills.

Northeast Florida Roots and Shoots group helped build Personal Energy Transportation (PET), or wheelchairs that can go just about anywhere. They spent two days at the PET project center building the wheelchairs using power tools, painting them and packing them for shipment. For more information check out the Project Database entry.

Travel:
Water for People needed volunteers for a mapping and assessment trip to Honduras to identify communities needing better access to safe drinking water and sanitation. David Beach, a volunteer in Skog’s book, answered the call and after traveling through Honduras, helped prepare the volunteers’ report. A few months later he was sent back to review the success (or failure) of Water for People projects–he found that communities with improved access to water were now focused on things like improving education since they didn’t have to constantly work to get clean water.

Twelve Roots & Shoots Youth Leaders traveled to Tanzania this past summer to learn about conservation biology and do research for 15 days. They immersed themselves in a new culture and worked side-by-side with local students on service projects. Read the full story here.

Have an idea for a future Roots & Shoots Book of the Month? Email rsnewsletter@janegoodll.org with your idea today!