Volunteered again teaching reading and writing skills over lunch to the pre-K kids. 

Today, at the Leap Start program I’ve been volunteering with, I got to work with large groups of kids. Our tasks were to trace, and draw the letter “T”. We followed by poring over magazines, cutting and pasting the letter to a worksheet.

But what caught my eye was how the kids wrote their names. Two weeks ago, everyone of them had to copy their name tags. Today, when I asked them to write their names on the paper, only a couple pulled out their name tags. Most could write their name without help, and legibly.

It’s small, but those written names might as well have spelled ‘progress’. Because that’s what we’re looking for as volunteers. If we volunteer in a garden, we want to see the plants grow. If we volunteer at a soup kitchen, we want to see people fed. Visible, tangible progress is what keeps volunteers coming back.

If you are a project leader for a group of volunteers, make sure the they see progress. Small or large, visible and tangible progress means making a difference.

And making a difference is what we all want.