Call me old-fashioned, but community service used to mean something. Charitable work, an important tradition in American culture, once grew out of a family's genuine concern for a cause or from long-standing relationships to houses of worship. And it was based on a shared belief in the value of good deeds. Sadly, it seems we baby boomers took this good and pure idea of service and turned it into its own unique kind of monster.  Read article

Karena Cronin, a UNV volunteer working for CIVICUS, reflects on volunteers' role in strengthening civil society organizations' accountability, as discussed at the recent CIVICUS World Assembly in Glasgow, Scotland.   Read article

Beijing, China: Most of the Olympic Games volunteers are university students. While they are keen to help out during the international event, they are also concerned about finding a paying job and choose the latter instead. Recent survey shows that majority of the interviewees are worried about employment. They are not only busy with their schoolwork, but also with job-hunting and becoming Olympic volunteers at the same time.  Read article

If it looks like a job, quacks like a job, then it is a job. Why give it to unpaid volunteers? Carol Sarler, a former charity trustee, says that one of the lessons she learned is to "resist the entreaties of volunteers in favour of at least minimally paid workers." In this article reposted from the UK daily Times Online, she writes, that "without the mutual discipline of financial contract, you can neither make them (volunteers) do nor stop them (from) doing anything."  What do you think?  Read article

Some provinces in Canada are engaged in a social experiment -- requiring high school students to put in up to 40 hours volunteering in their communities in order to graduate. But experts are asking: What message are we sending teens if we are equating mandatory community service with volunteering? Volunteer or risk not graduating?  Read article