More than 70 percent of America's 60 million young people believe they can make a difference in their communities, and the numbers support their assertions. Teenagers spend 2.4 billion hours annually in volunteer service, and their labor is worth $34.3 billion to the U.S. economy. Volunteering brings emotional satisfaction, provides opportunities for learning skills that can be used in the job market, and helps teens to make career choices. But the major reasons that teens cite for performing volunteer service is the compassion they feel for people in need and the belief that they improve the quality of life for others. Volunteering: The Ultimate Teen Guide is a complete guide for teens who want to volunteer. Young people get a complete picture of what volunteering involves, including the personal commitment and the physical and emotional stamina, as well as the positive_and sometimes negative_consequences. This book is filled with inspiring and rewarding stories from teen volunteers who testify to the benefits and the immense personal satisfaction as a result of their volunteer efforts. Volunteering is a wonderful resource for both teens as well as those who work with teens on how to use one's time and energy to positively impact society and to gain personal satisfaction from helping others.

Most young people in the United States today are willing to give something back to their communities. A recent report showed that each year an estimated 13 million teenagers donate more than 2.4 billion hours of their time to charitable causes, and the Gallup Youth Survey has found that roughly one-third of all teens participate in volunteer work. This volume examines the opportunities young people have for volunteering, and explores the issue of school-mandated community service.

The Interagency Executive Oversight Committee presents a collection of Web sites for teenagers on community service and volunteering in the United States. The sites cover clubs and organizations, community service programs, volunteer opportunities, and the Peace Corps.

Volunteering: Insights and Tips for Teenagers provides a complete guide to the world of volunteerism. It shows you how to become engaged in what will be among the most gratifying and worthwhile experiences of your life. In this book you’ll learn why volunteerism is so important both to volunteers themselves and to those they serve and explore different types of volunteer opportunities and how to find and secure a rewarding volunteer placement. With advice from professionals and first-hand accounts from teen volunteers, including a fifteen-year-old girl who started a foundation that now helps hundreds of new parents, this book will help you make the most of your volunteer experience. You will learn how to research volunteer opportunities what to expect from the application, interview, and orientation process how to be a successful volunteer how to handle unfamiliar or uncomfortable situations and how to ask for help, and how you can use what you learn as a volunteer to create new academic or career opportunities. With helpful tips for success and a resource list of volunteer opportunities, this book provides everything you need to understand the vital and vibrant world of volunteerism.

Aimed at both experienced and new volunteer managers, this guide offers practical advice about starting and maintaining effective teen volunteer programs in school and public libraries. With sensitivity for teens' special needs and their lack of experience in the workplace, it covers the basics of interviewing, training, and supervising. Included are profiles of several library volunteer programs with sample forms and promotional materials, lively anecdotes from the library world, and tips from successful managers of teen volunteers.

When teens volunteer at the library, they gain new skills, make connections, and build their resumes, while libraries benefit from a new generation of advocates. This guide shows librarians how to establish or develop a teen volunteer program. Advocating a flexible approach, this book speaks to every library, including both public and school libraries. From small libraries with no budget to large libraries with seemingly endless budgets and everything in between, all of the concepts covered can be scaled up or down to meet the needs of the community being served. The book begins with the big picture, discussing benefits to teens, libraries, and communities; it then reviews volunteer types and volunteer possibilities for teens, including the traditional roles of shelving and programming as well as passion-led projects, programming opportunities, and special initiatives and drives. Specific volunteer roles are described in depth, with instructions for practical applications, and concrete examples and experiences from various types of libraries illustrate principles discussed. Readers will also learn how to establish volunteer partnerships within and outside of the library. The book ends with a discussion of methods for evaluation and assessment.