Volunteering Stories: Part 1

Remember a few posts ago, I wondered whether to start a new series for my volunteering posts? Well, as you see here, I did. Today, I only did an orientation, which is actually longer than my shifts are going to be (4 hours compared to my 3 hour shifts). This orientation was different from last year's orientation at Tufts Medical Center, which had way more people. At Milford's orientation, we all sat in a rectangle and talked way more than last year. Also, the kids at today's orientation were more talkative, introducing themselves in a friendly manner and acting like long-time friends even though we had never met. Another observation was the roles. At Tufts, almost all the volunteers were escorts, but here, there a lot of different departments that you can get plugged into. You even have a choice on where you want to go (depending on availability).

As for what happened today, we watched lots of videos (even parts of an episode from MythBusters), signed forms, and went through a physical packet (which is another thing that Tufts didn't provide). We got our volunteer shirts today, but they ran out of mediums. When they went looking for more, they realized they ran out of stock. So my brother and I (and some other boys) had no choice but to wear the super big large shirts, even for the picture for our badges. I also got my role assigned to me today. I got assigned to the endoscopy department, which I had no idea about. Also, none of my siblings will be working with me there, so I hope I can meet make some good friends like I did at Tufts. That's one aspect that I'll miss from Tufts: the friends I made. There were more volunteers there, which allowed me to socialize more. At Milford, they only have 36 volunteers that are spread out all across the weekdays. That's like 7 volunteers working on one day, and those 7 are spread out into different departments, making my chances of making friends even less. Oh well, I don't know what will happen at Milford, so I'll just have to wait and see.