Ask HN: How has volunteering helped you grow?

Last year I've started a course on youtube about building products with javascript [1]. The initial idea was to make a free open source course for people who are already comfortable with language, but don't know how to start building things. The coolest (and unexpected) part was the questions I got from all sorts of people - they made me go into the details a whole lot more than I ever did just working on things. And, of course, all the gratitude from people is quite satisfying too :)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_gX69xPLi-ljVdNhspjZ...

I volunteer for my nearest Parkrun regularly. It has helped become part of a local(ish) community, something that is otherwise difficult to do in London and other big cities. Due to the local demographics, it's well populated by people who are in tech anyway, but it's a good way to branch out of that a bit, and get to know people from different walks of life too.

I'm from New Zealand and I'm currently living in Thailand volunteering for an anti human trafficking organisation, rescuing children from the sex trade.

I was thrown in the deep end and had to quickly become a Salesforce administrator and developer, I'm now running two Salesforce orgs, as well as all the other stuff we have going on.

I've found it an amazing exercise -- I've grown in patience, understanding of other people, time management, etc... as well as all the new technical skills I've learned.

I was amazed at how doable it is as well. My wife and I have two young girls (5 and 3), and although we were hugely daunted to begin with, we've coped pretty well. As long as you (the reader) have some ability to roll with the punches, I'd give it a go, you'll probably surprise yourself.

I personally don't find any fulfillment from volunteering, nor do I really grow in any direction. But that doesn't bother me. I have a few hours per week usually dedicated to tutoring kids from schools that are not so great. It seems to help them and I have a few hours to spare.

Several years ago I started doing computer help/repair for seniors. Eventually people insisted on paying me a little for my time. Now, with no formal training, I've been working in IT for over five years.

Some of the neatest tricks I use day to day I figured out while trying to fix a particularly vexing problem on some little old lady's desktop.

I also feel like it's given me a great perspective on how non-technical users interact with PCs.

I volunteer as a FIRST robotics mentor, specifically as a programming mentor. I find it incredibly rewarding to see students go from zero to programming hero (from their teammates' perspective). Also, as a web developer, I like the challenge of writing code for a robot.

I taught a class in Boston on how to program with python, just kind of basic introduction to the language and making simple programs for people who had never done it before or needed help learning.

It deepened my own understanding of python substantially as I prepared for each class by making sure I understood things completely so that nobody could surprise me with any questions like "Why was `self` designed to be implicitly passed but not implicit in declaration?" etc.

If I really feel a connection (hard to describe) to a project, or to its people, I do not mind the money and do it for free.

Let me share my story how volunteering has changed my life!

I was studying BE(Four Year Study) at a college in India before 2 years. I was not impressed by studies and I am a lazy guy too. I just want to do something which makes me happy.

(During my third year of study) I started going to hostel library to read newspapers (only to read current news, cinema, politics etc.., especially not something useful). I started liking reading as it gave me a good feeling and something which feels good inside.

I started observing that there is the only librarian who manages the entire library and he makes more than an hour every day after the working hours to arrange the newspapers in shelves and the books.

Something struck me to help the librarian after the working hours. I just started helping by arranging the newspapers and magazines regularly.

The librarian started becoming my friend and I was able to get new friends and every evening we started to make debating on current issues and a lof of stuff like that.

I started feeling happier and some responsibility in myself.I started reading books and magazines. I was feeling I was growing by inside.

Finally, the day came for applying for the post of "Library Secretary". Librarian asked me to apply for that but I had hesitated. But I applied.

I was interviewed by the college principal committee and got selected as a "Library Secretary"

Things to note from my story

1.You should not be in a profit oriented mindset. That is against volunteering I feel strongly. 2.Volunteering will increase the responsibility and provide a nice platform to learn the environment especially people. 3.It will groom you without you noticing it 4.You will make a network which may or may not be useful. 5.Finally you end up something good

I volunteered one year in a school with CodeClub in the UK. I loved every second of it and working with kids is both extremely rewarding and challenging. It can test your patience but it will teach you to work with other in a unique way.

Not technology related. I started volunteering as a little league coach when my son started playing tee ball.

Despite knowing almost nothing about baseball or coaching, it's been really rewarding and a big learning experience for both the kids and I. It puts things in perspective.

Volunteering has taught me a lot about being a servant and a leader.

I've spent a lot of time -probably thousands of hours- volunteering, so it has been a significant investment of my time, but I'd do it all over again. Not only is it very rewarding, but it can develop your character and leadership abilities in all kinds of positive ways.

I started my volunteer experience at a homeless shelter in the Chicago area. It got me out of my comfort zone and challenged me to face difficult, often confusing situations that I was very unprepared for. At the end of the day, it constantly challenged me to simply be a servant of others without expecting much of anything in return.

Since then I have volunteered a lot at churches, in the foster care system, crisis pregnancy centers at and other non-profits in my community. This has given me a ton of experience working with people and dealing with people issues. I'm a programmer by trade, but a people person at the end of the day. I have found this invaluable in the business world. Most of my leadership experience has come from volunteering in non-profits. Much of my leadership style has also been developed from that experience. I've been recognized as a very uniquely skilled leader at my company and there's no doubt I owe it to my volunteer experience, so I'm thankful for that and would highly recommend finding meaningful ways to give back to your community.

I'm on the organizing committee for a yearly STEM event for high school students in the local area. We host a day long event every spring with a bunch of local businesses and colleges. It's a rather successful event that leads to a lot of networking and makes a lot of students stand out to local businesses, so it opens the doorways for internships and job opportunities, as well as opens a dialogue between students and prospective colleges.

We are by no means a large city, but we are a decently sized Midwest town with a lot of companies that fulfill a lot of different roles. Students don't know about many of these businesses, so they learn about what exists in the immediate area and it fosters an organic growth between schools and business. Some students are already locked into Ivy League schools, and others aren't sure what they want to do in life, so it's a great opportunity to meet students from all walks of life and see what their interests are, as well as were students are headed.

I personally got my foot in the door at the event a few years ago with a company solely because I asked about internship opportunities for high school students, and although I have since moved on from that place, I still help organize the event because it is such a good opportunity for students.

I did Peace Corps (US overseas volunteer program) a few years ago in my mid-20s. I spent three and a half years living and working in Burkina Faso in West Africa. I was teaching basic computing (think kids who have never touched a computer) and training other (Burkinabe) teachers to do the same.

I helped to build two computer labs using funding from various French groups and trained one teacher intensely to the point that he was able to run the curriculum himself. I know that it lasted at least a year after I was gone but unfortunately haven't kept up since then.

Anyway, life in Burkina taught me a hell of a lot about myself, patience, culture, language and communication, community and a whole range of other things. It has deeply defined who I am now and was incredibly valuable for me. I still, however, struggle with the question of whether or not I recommend such programs to others.

I spent about 3 years volunteering at a mentally disabled people charity: its mission was to try and help through sports, basically leading workouts at different levels in a large gym in the winter, and at a track & field track in the summer, in order to help them burn some energy and feel better in general.

It gave me a much stronger appreciation from having been lucky enough to be born without genetic impairments, and exposed me to a lot of very harrowing situations. The one I remember most is probably one where the son had some sort of progressive genetic condition where when he was young he was fine, but over the years he was losing more and more functionality (speech regression, physical control regression) he was in the mid-late stages of the disease when I was there and you could see his father remembering how he was earlier, and trying to cherish the current state of his son, while knowing what was to come and that he was going to lose him.

I think everybody who talks about "pulling oneself up by their bootstraps" and "anybody can do it via hard work" would benefit from seeing that unfortunately we are not all born equal, and that you can work as hard as you want but if you're not lucky enough to be born with the right body, in the right place at the right time, it won't mean much. I remember there was a friend of a friend that came by sometimes, he didn't have a mental impairment at all (he was super super sharp, and wrote amazingly well, I think he was actually published) but he had little control over his body (stuck in a wheelchair, drooling, could not talk at all) and was able to communicate via a jury-rigged typewriter since he was able to more or less move one hand. He definitely understood very well what was going on and his predicament, but he was still able to make something of himself and (mostly) have a positive attitude.

When I see all the sports people that say "I succeeded because I wanted it more than my competitors and I worked super hard for it", it makes me think that quite a few of the people I volunteered with worked super hard to run with significant impairments that made their gaits anything but normal, and week after week they would train to get better, but obviously they would never win a marathon or anything. Every elite athlete when asked first thing should say "I am so extremely lucky to have been born with my genetics, I worked hard, yes, but so does everybody else"

And dovetailing on what I was saying above: I also was shown time and time again that just because two people have the same disability, it doesn't mean they are the same, or that they want the same things, or that they need the same things, a significant disability sometimes makes you not see the rest of the person, but they are still there.

It definitely was a very important experience in my life, and definitely very recommended for everybody. I made quite a few friends while I was there and many years later I still wonder what happened to them.

Until recently, I volunteered as a coach for my local school district's Science Olympiad, in the middle school division. My first year they asked me to work with one of the aviation events. I'd never really had an interest in flight, and certainly not to the extent that I could teach others about it.

First lesson: middle schoolers (think 11 - 14 years old) will test your patience in new and completely unimagined ways, if you don't have kids of your own. They will also surprise you in a bunch of wonderful ways too. I had to learn how to corral their attention, navigate their relationships with each other, and motivate them to actually get stuff done. Turns out it was great training for being a supervisor later on :)

Second lesson: I had to learn about flight, more than I'd ever before, and figure out how to teach it. I don't think I did this very well, to be honest, but five years after graduating school it was nice to teach myself something that wasn't tech-related.

Final lesson: I had to learn to accept there were things I could not fix. As an engineer and inveterate tinkerer, this is hard for me to come to terms with. Even in the affluent area I lived in, and with kids who had all volunteered for this after-school activity, we had kids with serious home issues, kids whose friends were dealing with hard personal problems, and at least one violent outburst. I saw the kids for ninety minutes a week; the best I could do was make a welcoming and safe environment for them. That has never really sat well with me.

My job changed, and now I travel too much to coach anymore. It's my biggest regret about the change. I miss working with those kids.

I helped organizing stuff for student's union waay back in university while studying. Great environment to make mistakes and learn from them. You have skin in the game because you don't want to screw up and make your friends mad, yet the risks for all stakeholders are fairly minimal - all the while the scale is large enough for all sorts of scale and communication based maladies kick in that really don't appear in a small tight knit group.

I’d accidentally ridden into a Critical Mass Cycle protest ride in London around 2010. Ended up setting one up in Bath, that ran for a bit and started attending the local cycle campaigning group. A respect ride held in honour of a young man that was killed in a hit and run however became something bigger than a Friday night protest ride, and I was the main speaker at a large ride held in his honour. It was rather humbling.

After that I was asked to be chair of Cycle Bath and over the last 3 years I’ve taught myself about transport, helped the council win millions in funding, and made cycling a key agenda item locally. I’ve learnt a lot about social media, public engagement and how to work with councils.

My proudest moment was cycling along a towpath I’d fought hard to have upgraded to a 4 season wheel friendly surface, even having police protection at a meeting, and seeing people in wheelchairs using it. It brought home that much of the cycle advocacy is just about making public space easier for people, particularly kids and people with mobility issues, to get around independently.

Recently I created a transport tube map for Bath and this resulted in a national series of workshops teaching people how to make this key campaigning tool for cycle advocacy groups and even some council officers.

I’ve begun to apply my IT skills to analyse UK Census 2011 commuter flow data and model modal split flows within the city. This piece of work might go national in the next couple of weeks due to some of the analysis I’ve been able to do. (Cycling and Walking can be hugely under-represented in the stats that councils use for transport planning.)

I’m now thinking of running for council in 2019 and hopefully getting the transport brief. It’s considered a bit of a poison chalice but personally I cannot see a better way to help improve the city which has been my home for the last 16 years.

If somebody had told me in 2010, that that one cycle ride home would have lead to this, I simply would not have believed them. What I will say is that I almost wish I could get paid to do this full time, but thankfully IT consultancy seems to give me the time to do this for now.

[edit] A lot of what I've written on the subject can be found here https://cyclebath.org.uk/author/awjreynolds/

As an American from an immigrant family, I owe so much to the volunteer mentors, teachers, coaches, and community activists that volunteered in programs I was in growing up in New York City.

It eventually led me to go to college, then on to work as a NASA engineer and for many startup companies afterward.

I've personally volunteered in NYC, LA, Spain, Brazil, mostly in the homeless, substance abuse, and prostitution/human trafficking related causes.

I believe we exist to give to others. Now more than every people are looking to make a real difference.

That's why I've quit my day job and started

http://BeADoer.IO

A place to connect with other like-minded people, and rally support around social causes. We're making it super easy to get involved with shaping policy, volunteering, and fundraising.

I'd love it if you join the list in anticipation of our launch since anyone on here is the kind of person that can help us shape this thing and make a huge impact.

In high school I coded for some MUD games for fun.

I wasn't thinking anything like "This will look great on my resume" or "Wow, C, so elite". More like, "How can I add this new fireball spell? Which similar code can I copy?"

Before you know it, things like pointers and memory management were second-nature. Skip ahead a decade and a half, when I left academia for industry, suddenly those silly gaming days are more important than my university years!!

I did a year of remote CS teaching for kids in Kentucky with Microsoft's TEALS program. Great experience. I actually used to be a teacher so it was nice getting back in that mode. Teaching is also a great way to practice breaking down technical subjects and making them understandable. It really helps with soft skills - communicating with non techies, constructively criticizing people, making complicated ideas simple - all those things improved for me after a year of working with those kids.

I did Peace Corps and it was the most valuable experience I've ever had from a personal growth perspective, and others too.

I volunteer, but not for anything related to software development.

I'm an ASL (Assistant Scout Leader) for a scout troop in London. I enjoyed my time in the scouts as a kid, and i figured if i was only able to enjoy it as others gave up their time, perhaps it's time I pay it forward.

Turns out, it's been incredibly rewarding. In our career we tend to spend loads of time inside, and this has got me out doing active things (camping, canoeing, even skiing.... lighting fires, hiking, etc) that I'd never do off my own back.

But even greater than that, it's started to teach me how to be a leader -- not through exercising raw authority, but through coaching and mentoring young people together as part of a team. Sometimes i don't know the answer and i have to work it out with them!

I think that's a direct mapping to being a good senior/lead developer there -- it's helped me immensely, and sometimes I've felt less challenged by my Scouts than I have by my dev team!

Thoroughly recommend it to anyone considering volunteering.

Grow, I can't say.

I did find it instructive helping out as a baseball coach when my son was young. There I learned (I thought) why the American school system puts the cutoff for a passing grade somewhere around 60: if you give a child something he can do 2/3 of the time, he may remain engaged in the task; 1/3 of the time, he will be bored and frustrated. I guess it did teach me something about teaching.

These days I teach ESL to adults one night a week during much of the year. I wonder at times whether academic tutoring of children might be more useful.

I am currently on a table with local health care organizations to improve trans-related health services in the area. I also give workshops to trans/non-binary/gender-diverse individuals as well as cisgender individuals that work with them (HR, psychotherapists.) Right now this amounts to about an evening's worth of work every week for the last 5 months.

Last spring I mentored young women (high school age) who were interested in getting into STEM. Teams of students were basically making a mini-startup, including coding an MVP, business plan, etc.

The work I get most fulfilment from is working with trans/non-binary/gender-diverse individuals directly, in particular with workshops that discuss normalized attitudes that have a detrimental effect on well-being.

Has it helped me grow though? No, I wouldn't say so. It's just things I do because it has to be done.