Dec 13, 2012 — A holiday reminder of how generous many Americans are: More than 64 million people volunteered through a formal organization in 2011, a new report shows. That was up from the year before and part of a trend.
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Here's Some Good News: Volunteering Is On The Rise
by Mark Memmott
Dec 13, 2012 — A holiday reminder of how generous many Americans are: More than 64 million people volunteered through a formal organization in 2011, a new report shows. That was up from the year before and part of a trend.Enough of the bad news for a moment.
Smack in the middle of the holiday season, here's something that underscores how generous many Americans are:
"64.3 million Americans (more than one in four adults) volunteered through a formal organization last year, an increase of 1.5 million from 2010," the Corporation for National and Community Service and the National Conference on Citizenship report.
The organizations also estimate that "two out of three Americans (65.1% or 143.7 million individuals) volunteered informally by doing favors for and helping out their neighbors, an increase of 9.5 percentage points from last year."
Of course, natural disasters — such as Superstorm Sandy — increase the need for volunteers. So there is something of a flip side to this story.
But as we said, there's more than enough bad news around. Let's focus on the positive for a moment.
Note: That's just a question, not a survey of public opinion.
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