Volunteers: Compassion Fueled Service
National Volunteer Week takes place every April and it’s our opportunity to recognize the enormous impact that volunteer service has to further our mission around the globe.
At World Hope International, we celebrate the volunteers who make it possible for us to participate and be present in more areas than we could otherwise. Because of the selfless giving of volunteers, we are able to widen our circle of impact and influence, alleviating poverty, suffering and injustice in more communities and to more people.
Some volunteers respond on short notice to help provide clean water after natural disasters. Others work alongside staff in the day-to-day work of World Hope International. Volunteers travel to where World Hope International’s active programs are located to see opportunity, dignity, and hope restored to communities, families and individuals in places like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cambodia, the Philippines and more.
Upon their return, they continue to support the work of World Hope through faithful giving, fueled by their compassion. Wherever you find World Hope volunteers, you will find generous hearts that are drawn to helping others.
We asked them WHY they volunteer:
Jon Westrup, from Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, whose main focus is disaster relief shared,
“I get to be God’s hands and feet after a disaster.”
Another volunteer, MJ Pearson, from Trenton, Ontario, Canada is passionate about volunteering. She does disaster relief work as well as volunteering on the WHI Canada team as the Emergency Relief and Logistics Support person. She shared,
Volunteering with World Hope gives me the ability to be involved with disaster relief work, and so many other amazing relief and sustainability projects around the world.
Volunteers sometimes work with World Hope while completing their graduate studies. Madison Routledge Pettus, of Stamford, Connecticut shared,
The organization allowed me to have an unprecedented hands-on experience working with trafficked women while allowing me to work on my research thesis. They partner with people and efforts on the ground with the greater ambition of stopping the systemic problem of human trafficking: not just throwing money at a rescue. This sustainable development attitude is present in all of World Hope’s efforts, which led me to feel confident in partnering with their work.
Another graduate student from Boston University, Kala Jennissen, interned with World Hope’s US office. She shares her experience as a volunteer,
I was drawn to an internship experience at World Hope International because of their goals to help community health in areas around the world while collaborating with community members.
There is no doubt that volunteers help to alleviate pain, injustice, poverty and suffering not only by what they do, but also the generosity of spirit that they display while doing it.
This Volunteer Appreciation Day, it is a privilege to honor and appreciate each of the volunteers who help to offer opportunity, dignity, and hope around the world and in our home and field offices.
You make World Hope and our world better because of your service.
Natalie Gidney
Engagement and Experience Coordinator
World Hope International
