Hey, Julie, this topic is interesting to me, too. I admire all you're doing for your community and, yes, domestic violence is a tough thing to be around. That's a pretty frustrating population to work with.
Having moved to Lompoc a year ago, I wanted to get involved here. I'm on the library committee (Friends of the Village Library) and its representative to the Library Foundation. I have started a home-bound service which is just now firing up. We need to do some publicity for it. Meantime, I could just ride around town with the magnetic sign on my car. For a town with so many seniors, I think it will be useful.
I was volunteering with Santa Barbara Hospice before moving and haven't started that up here with the local hospice yet. I read recently that, in August, the VA is opening a clinic in Santa Maria, the next town and I will volunteer as a psychotherapist. I used to visit my Aunt Kathleen, a nurse, at the Bronx, NY VA hospital and went on her ward with her whenever I was there...para- and quadriplegics. So much need there and even a little attention is very valuable to them.
The most educational and rewarding volunteer work I've ever done has been with the Red Cross these last three years. They've sent me to West Virginia, Alabama and Florida after Ivan and the other four hurricanes they had. Then, last year, when the levees broke in New Orleans on a Monday, I was in Louisiana on Friday. I was manager of mental health for the Capitol area (Baton Rouge.) I visited shelters and supervised the mental health workers there and was based in headquarters where I oriented incoming workers and gave them their assignments. Of course, I preferred being in the shelters to the administrative stuff. They sent me to New Orleans on the first day the authorities opened it to us. It was so neat to be in a convoy of 57 vehicles led by the state police, who opened the closed bridges to us all the way. We had big Red Cross banners on all the trucks and vans. No beds in any hotels so we stayed in "staff shelters." One was a church hall where there were 150 of us (men and women) sleeping in the big room. One shower in the ladies room, one in the men's room so we each took a four or five minute shower. All of us were out all day so it was a crunch to get a shower. One night, I didn't get mine until 2 am! It was worth the wait...and there were women behind me!
The church ladies offered to do our laundry for us. I left my clothes in a bag with my name on a card inside and also wrote "Thank you." When the bag came back the next day, there was a card in it from the woman who did it saying "God bless you, Mary." It moved me to tears. The work was awfully stressful. My first day there, I worked 17 hours, but it was usually more like 12.
I can't predict whether I'll go again for this year's hurricanes. I'm having surgery on my foot the last week in June (after our Greek cruise) and it will take a while to recover. Susie is not keen on my going because it's such hard conditions. I don't recommend sleeping on a cot for three weeks if you have a wonky back. By the way, we had Canadian as well as American cots - I prefer the Canadian. I've also taught a couple of courses for the Red Cross and participate in evacuation drills and the airport exercises. The Red Cross now has a mandate from the feds to do airport crashes so we need to be prepared.
The reason I looked forward to retirement was that I would be able to volunteer for the Red Cross...not something a working person can do if it involves going away for three weeks unexpectedly.
Volunteering is what is making retirement fun for me.