 It's at 8 o'clock in the Station House Hotel down at Lower Main Street and everyone's welcome so if you'd like to just find out more about what's going on with them they're always looking for volunteers and people to help out or just you want to find out you know the work that they do and what's happening in the community well that's a great place to start. Let a Kenny Toddy Towns committee this Wednesday evening at 8 o'clock. Speaking of volunteering and great places to start well the new census data shows the importance of how a diverse group of volunteers reflect or is reflective I suppose of our communities here in Donegal 14% of the county's population that's almost 23,000 people we're volunteering because this was in the the census of 2022. John Curran is Donegal Volunteer Centre Manager and joins me now in the studio. Those figures seem to be good to me. They are John it's fantastic and it's wonderful for us as an organization and as a society to be able to track that and tell how many people are volunteering and just how healthy it is. That's why it was important to get a question into the census. People probably won't be aware but it is very difficult to get a question into the census and it takes an awful lot of work and the last one in volunteering was in 2006 and we had a long campaign to get it back in and get the wording changed around so we were able to capture a little bit more information but it's wonderful for us to have that now. What was the most popular sector for volunteering? Sport. It's always the way that you know people are getting involved and the pride of the parish and the GA clubs and the soccer clubs and badminton clubs and cricket clubs and all sorts of clubs. Sometimes I feel that people that do that they don't see it as voluntary what it is. That's it and we find that an awful lot and we do an awards every year and we try to target those people who don't see themselves as volunteers. You see themselves as just giving a hand or this is what I do but ultimately without those people going out helping out with the under eights training or the under twelves or helping make the tee after the park run or whatever the case may be we wouldn't be able to have those sort of community moments where people get to come together and celebrate. Aside from sport what are other areas are a lot of volunteers needed in? Yes so volunteers are needed everywhere and we have a particular focus for this year looking at committees and looking at people getting involved in the leadership of community. So people who would have maybe a certain skill set? It is but we've yet to find people who don't have any skill set so we'll find something for everybody but we do want I suppose for this year to take a look at that but generally within the volunteering community out there you've got people involved in sports people involved in local community activities so that's you know running the hall and running the meals and wheels and all of those things and delivering the meals and wheels and making the tee and all those bits in between with people then getting involved in religion or religious organizations as volunteers because we all know that people take care of the church or they take care of the tees after funerals or they take care of the altar and the flowers and that's a massive part and people might not see that as volunteering but they're giving of their time for the benefit of others now they get the spiritual reward of doing that if they're doing it in that religious context but they're giving of their time to help others and it's just it's wonderful to see. Even right the way through to political organizations? Yeah we have you know you wouldn't just it wouldn't come on my radar anyhow when it comes to volunteering but if you think about it and six months time we'll have people knocking well probably five months time we'll have people knocking doors all over the constituency all over the county and those people are all volunteers they go out they put on a badge or they put on a hives or whatever the case may be and they knock on your doors for a cause that they believe in and it's just wonderful to see that spurred in without people giving of themselves we wouldn't live in a community and ultimately all of these things come down to us all wanting to live in a community that's happy and healthy and functioning and volunteering is the core of that. Yeah it's vital. At what age would it be more retired people or more younger people who are more willing to give of their time? I suppose it comes down to availability we find that younger people can probably more energetic teenage-ish have time to be volunteering and doing stuff and then older people have time to be doing stuff for volunteering but strangely within the volunteer center within the center that I work in we are that activation piece for people coming in new to volunteering so our average volunteers are under 35 female and not from here so that's our average volunteer coming in to the Donegal volunteer center specifically. Under 35 female and not originally from here. Not originally from here is our average volunteer but we're creating those leaders of the future so we're creating the people that will you know chair the the parent and toddler group in years to come and will be involved in the community hall or the parish development or whatever it is in years to come because they have to start somewhere and they have to get in and get involved and feel that sense of community because ultimately I suppose we all have we all have that we all want to feel part of something and we want that social experience and that social interaction that volunteering gives. And a lot of what volunteers are doing or keeping going are things that we take for granted you know a tidy town or you know a clean chapel or whatever it is. Entirely we'll all notice that the town isn't tidy but we don't necessarily notice that on a Sunday morning you know if you take letter Kenny here is the example and you mentioned their AGM coming up next week um letter Kenny tidy towns they do phenomenal work on a Sunday morning Neil Blockley and a crew of volunteers from all over the world. I've seen them out in action yeah. Come out on a Sunday morning here in letter Kenny and Ruth Mullen it's a Wednesday morning they do uh one crana I think is a Sunday morning you know a Saturday morning in one crana and these are all people who are giving to make us all live in a better in a nicer community in a better community and definitely we all we don't necessarily notice the results but we notice the absence and if we took if those 14,000 people um or sorry 23,000 people that are volunteering actively and then we all stopped tomorrow. Then we would notice the difference. Well we'd notice the kids would be running around the house full of energy. There'd be no youth clubs there'd be no wheels and wheels there'd be no active age all of these things would grind to halt. Interestingly the census showed that around the country volunteering levels are actually similar across ethnic groups. They are they're slightly higher for newer people coming in or for newer communities but they are similar and there's just not everybody's going to be I suppose volunteering and giving but it's probably a worldwide thing that people there's a certain cohort of people who feel that need to give or that social connection and the benefit they get out of it. I was just going to say that the benefit that they get out of it because it plays a great role I suppose in helping people to integrate into a country. It does it helps showcase and it helps show and get connections for people as well. You know ultimately we all want to live in that with that sense of community and it is volunteering that creates that. If we take it we ask people why they want to volunteer is one of our questions and it's just to look at their motivation and stuff like that and generally it comes down to one of three things it's social interaction so I'm new to Donegal or Newt Letter Kenny or New to Terminal or New to Fan it or whatever it is I want to create a connection with people. Skills development so I need to either I need retail experience or I need customer service experience I need interactions with people. You can learn new skills. You can massively you get to demonstrate leadership you get to demonstrate planning and delivery all of those things all come out of the work that you're doing and you won't necessarily notice it because at the end of the week there isn't a paycheck to it. No I know but also if you're retired and newly retired you get to carry on maybe some of the skills that you get to use some of the skills that you you've practised over a career. And you get to give back to those who have given to you we had a campaign we did with DLDC last year and the day centres in Donegal and it's still running if there's anybody interested we were looking for volunteers to help out with day centre committees and our tagline for it was to be part of your community story because that is helping out older generations who ultimately would have been the people helping out if you imagine now when you were young yourself and you were at a GA training you know you don't remember getting wet you don't remember getting battered about for the ball or a hurl or whatever it was you remember the feeling you remember the the the coach saying Jace John Fairplay DEE you played well today and that stays with you and I suppose as people develop through the generations it's important that we give that to the younger generations and then we're part of that community story going for and we're positive role models we are and we're showing what it is to be part of community. There's still a lot of organisations that are struggling I mean we have that the headline figure here in Donegal of almost 23,000 but there's still a lot of organisations struggling to get volunteers. There are there's always a need for new volunteers there's always a need for people to step up and do their bits and volunteering has changed people have a fear that you know if I put my hand up at a meeting and I volunteer for something that's me for the next 30 years I'm in charge of the youth club or I'm in charge of Ingo over the past five or ten years it's become very task focused so you volunteer for the bit you're doing and there's the shape around it we would suggest that people would volunteer for between two and four hours a week so any less than two hours by the time you have a cup of tea and take off your coat it's time to go again any more than anything well the way we put it is anything that involves a lunch breaks a job you know so four hours two to four hours is perfect doable yeah it is and everybody has that amount of time to give maybe not every week but over time they could they can like we have 110 live roles on our website at the moment so if people go to volunteer at Donegal.ie there's a choice of 110 different things right across the county that you can do and you know that you can get involved in your community everything from helping to steward the St Patrick's Day parade to being on the committee or being on the on the board of some organization and everything in between and we act as that introduction piece so if people are kind of hesitant they're not sure what they want to do maybe they want to talk about it and explore what their options are we'll help them do that and figure out what route would work for them to get involved well that's certainly plenty of choice and it's out of things more than ever just go to the website volunteer at Donegal.ie volunteer at Donegal.ie yeah okay and take it from there uh thanks John very illuminating thanks to my and John Courant from the Donegal Volunteer Center appreciate it enter the virgin unbelievable value