The Virginian-Pilot
©
VIRGINIA BEACH
For the second year in a row, city officials are tweaked by a report that ranks their "Community for a Lifetime" near the bottom of a list showing how many residents donate their time to good causes.
Virginia Beach was ranked 42nd among major U.S. cities for volunteerism, according to the recent Volunteering in America report released annually by the Corporation for National and Community Service.
That's 42nd out of 50, mind you. In the silver lining category, the ranking was up from the previous year's 47th.
Beach officials say the comparison isn't quite valid because the study didn't just measure Virginia Beach.
It crunched U.S. Census data from Virginia Beach's metropolitan statistical area, which includes 16 communities in Hampton Roads and northeastern North Carolina.
The study reports all major cities that way. When it says Portland, it means at least three localities in both Oregon and Washington. When it says San Francisco, it includes Oakland, Calif., a city in itself more populous than Norfolk, Portsmouth and Suffolk combined.
And when the report says 22.6 percent of adults in Virginia Beach volunteer their time, it doesn't mean they all live in Virginia Beach.
"It's not divided by the subgroups," said Siobhan Dugan, a spokeswoman for the study's authors. "People do ask what's included and they want a breakdown, and we can't give them that."
So the Beach trotted out its own statistics.
Mary Hancock, a city spokeswoman, said in fiscal year 2001, 15,954 volunteers "gave their time and talent to the city of Virginia Beach."
By fiscal year 2006, that tally had risen to 23,579, an increase of nearly 48 percent.
"Volunteers in the last fiscal year alone worked more than 1.9 million hours, equal to 913 full-time staff or a dollar value of more than $14 million," Hancock wrote in an e-mail.
Of course, she added, the city always will accept more help.
Any volunteers?
Richard Quinn, (757) 222-5119, richard.quinn@pilotonline.com
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Yahoo
What?
Doesn't this only measure volunteer time for the city? What about all of the other volunteer time clocked out there? I am pretty sure no one called our church and asked our pastor how many volunteer hours we racked up last year (or how many dollars we donated, either). Cheers, MGM, who knows there is more than one way to serve a community
Young people don't
"The larger problem is societal values: younger people don't want to do something for free."
That's a mouth full! Younger people and kids have been raised to be selfish (as a general rule), but sadly they will be the future. God help us all!
Read the article, Patriot
$14 million dollars in savings and you are complaining? How much does that cut off the property tax...about 4 or 5 cents is my guess. Patriot, do you volunteer or just complain?
VB always has high volunteerism rates. Problem is, we are lumped in with the low-ranked cities as one region.
I can think of literally dozens of my friends and neighbors who volunteer with various groups (city or private). We are a very caring city.
The larger problem is societal values: younger people don't want to do something for free. As a result, service organizations have dwindling memberships. Look at the average age of the Shriners you see and then think about all they do for burned and handicapped children.
VB is not the problem, but we can always do better. I am a proud volunteer in a number of organizations and hope that others will see this as a wake-up call.
Why? TAXES!
So the city is taxing you to death and then expects you to volunteer to work for them to save them money! LOL!
What?
Volunteer at the food bank? When the surf's up? Are you NUTS!!!
VB
It is a shame that the city (VB) that used to have the largest all-volunteer EMS system now has to pay its paramedics. We are seeing fewer people want to do this task.
And an aside, why did VB de facto kill its police auxiliary program? People WANT to volunteer, but are no longer allowed.