Volunteer Match. International Volunteer. Volunteer.gov Home Page. Global Volunteer Network. United We Serve. Volunteers of America. When Volunteers of America was founded in 1896, volunteerism derived from a military context and to “volunteer” one’s time in service to others was a full-time commitment. Our founders, Maud and Ballington Booth, and other early members of our organization came to call themselves Volunteers of America because they volunteered their whole lives to help people in need. This included - not only volunteering their time - but also their hearts, their spirits and their professional prosperity.
Today, each year Volunteers of America touches the lives of more than 2 million people in over 400 communities in 46 states and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico through programs that are staffed by full-time, paid professionals who have adopted this same ideal of service as their full-time mission. However, that does not mean that we do not also depend on an army of modern-day “volunteers” who offer their free time to support our volunteer programs nationwide. Why Volunteer? Everyone Can Help.