Finding The Time To Give Many Services Cannot Function Without The Hours Of Volunteer Help That Are Getting Harder To Come By

Nobody’s saying it’s the end of the world.

But more than a few of the people who run social service agencies that rely on volunteers have noticed something: The ‘90s time crunch is real. It’s no make-believe trend.

“We’ve got people out there who are qualified and want to help, but often it seems they just don’t have the time,” said Crystal Jackson, supervisor of the Spokane Community Mental Health Center’s Crisis Hotline.

She said she needs 75 volunteers. And right now she’s making do with between 50 and 60.

Others see the same thing.

“We are having difficulty getting volunteers,” said Don Kaufman, director of Big Brothers & Sisters in Spokane. “We’re having to be more flexible in our requirements.”

In the first five months of 1994, Kaufman’s agency received 101 inquiries from men expressing an interest in volunteering. During that same period this year, there were only 69 inquiries.

Inquiries from women, over the same periods, dropped from 125 to 64.

Informed observers offer a variety of partial explanations.

The surge in the number of two-career families has had a predictable impact on household schedules. Corporate down-sizing has left many people busier than ever at work. And today there are more and more organizations competing for volunteers’ time.

Nobody is saying people across-the-board have stopped caring. At Hospice of Spokane, for instance, prospective volunteers are on a waiting list.

“It might actually be that volunteerism has increased,” said Vic Forni, chief operating officer for United Way of Spokane County. “But maybe the amount of time people can commit is what’s decreasing. In the past, an agency might have had 15 volunteers working six hours and now they might have 20 volunteers who can work two hours.”

You don’t have to be a math whiz to see the shortfall there.

At the Spokane Food Bank, unpaid helpers contributed some 12,000 hours of work last year, said Ann Price, development manager.

The Food Bank simply could not provide its existing level of service without volunteers. And as is the case at many other agencies, a lot of those offering helping hands are senior citizens or students.

“That person in the workaday world, it’s harder to make contact with them and find a place where they can help unless it’s for a special one-time event,” said Price.

It’s not that people are purposely dodging the chance to pitch in.

“I’ll get someone who expresses a lot of interest and would be perfectly qualified to do the work but then, when they really look at their schedule, they see they just don’t have the hours to commit because they already have too many outside obligations,” said the Crisis Hotline’s Jackson.

Despite statistics about how much TV Americans watch and other indications of a leisure-orientation, anecdotal evidence suggests many of us are seriously overbooked.

“Aren’t we all just frantic anymore?” said Mary Ann Murphy, who oversees volunteers at Deaconess Medical Center.

One reason this troubles some social service providers is the likelihood that demand for volunteers with skills and training is actually going to increase in years to come, said Claudia Peters, director of volunteer services at Sacred Heart Medical Center.

But Ann Hanson is optimistic about volunteerism in the future. A hospital candy striper herself back in the ‘60s, she is in charge of the junior volunteer program at Valley Hospital and Medical Center. “This summer we have more volunteers than I have spots for,” she said. “And let me tell you, these kids are terrific.”

They aren’t going to forget about giving something back to their community when they grow up, she said.

The Food Bank’s Ann Price agreed. She predicted that high school and college students volunteering today will keep donating time and energy when they get older.

“I think you’ll see people going into their work lives with the sense that they have a responsibility to find ways to help. So I think the trends are pretty bright.”

Of course, many of today’s young people are going to be tomorrow’s parents with complicated, time-crunched lives.

But, said one agency director, when people really want to help, they find a way.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by Molly Quinn