A new start after 60: I became a 'hummingbird' for people with dementia

Volunteering is such a great way to fill the soul!

There's so many ways to volunteer, always another way to help if you need a change. I got into fire fighting last year, and now help with ambulance volunteering. I also do free job skills tutoring, that's a fun way to interact with people directly.

I've talked about it on here before, but I love volunteering in nursing homes for very selfish reasons.

The people in there have lived lives. They may be out of touch but they know things. I talk with residents about my hobbies of woodworking, gardening, canning, hunting, fishing, and wild gathered food.

I've learned WAY more with those conversations than YouTube or books could've ever taught me. It's absolutely worth your time.

And nursing homes are always looking for people to spend time with the very lonely residents.

Anyone with a hobby that isn't technology should do that.

Any programs in NYC you'd particularly recommend? I'll be moving back in a few months and would love to start volunteering.

I adored my two visits to the Computer History Museum in Palo Alto, the guided tours and showcases were run by volunteer retired industry veterans. It was obvious that they loved doing it, and it was such a privilege to hear from the people icebreaking right at the beginning of all of this, back when it was all punchcards, tape and big-ol' mainframes. They were still playing around with the old tech, restoring it and doing cool new things with it, just for the joy of it.

Not usually. The main reason that these organizations need volunteers is, is because most folks don’t think they are worth supporting, financially.

This is often because they serve segments of the population that represent a small demographic, or because the causes they champion don’t enjoy mainstream support.

There are some organizations that abuse volunteers, but they are few and far between (but are treated as typical, when folks want to attack).

Also, when you pay for work, you get work, but there’s no guarantee of “heart.” In many cases, the emotional investment is worth far more than the financial worth.

I’ve been doing volunteer work for over 40 years. Much of it has been extremely valuable tech work, and much of that work has been treated in rather shabby fashion. When people get stuff for free, they often devalue it. This is common, in nonprofit work. It can certainly be maddening.

I do it anyway. I tend to think of the final end-users of my work, as opposed to the middlemen/women (BTW: volunteering is a great way to meet potential romantic interests -I don’t care; I’m married).

I run marketing for a non-profit that supports a number of community programs.

One of which provides free in-school dental care for rural children, regardless of insurance or nationality. The grant funding ran out years ago and the non-profit has been funding thousands of dental treatments out of its reserves - which is obviously quite expensive.

All of this is to say I was tasked with creating and running a fundraising campaign with a budget of $300 - to raise funds for a 6 figure annual expense. My budget is so small because all of the other budget went to child dental wellness.

It's a multi-week campaign and if I brought on incremental labor costs with each volunteer - I would be in gross violation of minimum wage laws and sink the non-profit due to the minimal resources available.

Because free market is sometimes (in fact a lot of the times) bullshit.

Free market doesn’t work when people have no personal interest on something and in itself promotes individualism.

So free market doesn’t care about people who suffer so much they become a burden to the economy.

And that’s for any suffering, not only pain : you can be of no interest for free markets if you are poor, sick, isolated, homeless, if your country is at war, under influence, constrained, abused or just unlucky …

Free markets can fulfill most of the human needs by transforming money from and into goods and services but if there is something it’s not going to do, it’s to care.

It’s an issue because humans naturally cares about things and other humans and that’s how our societies aren’t collapsing everyday.

But the capitalist system, for all its proven goods, also inherently promotes individualism and demotes caring of the world and people around.

Volunteers are doing the important hard work that free market and politics won’t do.

All of this could probably be avoided in a perfect democracy but a perfect democracy will never happen and would anyway live in an imperfect world.

In Sweden, where the minimum salary is pretty high, and in general employment has many rules and laws around them, there would be a limit to the type of work that you can do as a "job".

You can't just transform a volunteer to a person working for half the salary of the employed person next to him.

But not all the time, and that is the point. Plus, most of the people with dementia that are extremely aggressive and/or violent are that way due to a lack of socialization and an extreme sense of loneliness.

Of course that’s not always true, and I can guarantee that volunteering there is not always pleasant.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t rewarding or worthwhile all the same.

Can't speak to other countries, but where I live they're specifically separated

Non violent residents were afforded many liberties, violent ones were moved to a different slightly better equiped facility (I guess it's easier to find funding to keep "the crazies" in check vs just caring for demented people)

Sadly, I can relate to this. I wouldn't wish such an experience even to my worst enemies. You see people turning into a husk of themselves, and all the family in-fighting, where one side wants to help them and the other considers them nothing more than a burden... Terrible.

On top of that, imo, happiness isn't a state we can live in, it comes and it goes, and that is ok.