Volunteers have been integral to the establishment of the Showground, the swimming pool, the ambulance station and fire station, and the bike path. In each case, a group of Valley volunteers worked together to establish design needs, raise funds and, often, to build it with their own hands. One of my first experiences of belonging, as a new resident, was joining the crew laying a section of the bike path to Old Barrengarry Store.
Research from the University of Sydney has shown there are considerable mental and physical health benefits to volunteering, a greater sense of belonging being one. Other benefits include increased happiness and sense of satisfaction with life, lower blood pressure, relief from chronic pain and even help with weight control.
Chris Pryor is one resident who regularly gives time to community projects here: the Friends of the Brush-tail Rock-Wallaby, Kangaroo Valley Environment Group (KVEG), and the Reconciliation Allies Kangaroo Valley (RAKV) mainly, as well as volunteering at the Folk Festival and the Kangaroo Valley Arts Festival (KVAF) and also working with WIRES here and beyond.
“It’s the meaning of life isn’t it? Something to get out of bed for. And satisfaction that others enjoy a better life (or death), whether it’s wombats, roos, wallabies.”
Pryor values the local environment and the arts and her work in these groups allow her to foster enjoyment and preservation of them. She also feels she is contributing to the caring–sharing feeling of the whole community.
“The inclusive, loving nature of this community is super important. I can’t imagine living in an anonymous city again.”
Pryor’s “miscellaneous stuff we all do” speaks to the way so many here do contribute to community, from one shift of gate duty at the annual Show to decades-long commitment to Lions. (See the March Voice celebrating Lorain Mairinger.)
Though many who volunteer here are retired, Pryor fits her volunteering around her paid work, which can be up to 30 hours a week in the warmer months and about half that in winter. Another member of both the RAKV and KVEG, Jack Hinde, also fits his volunteering around his 55 to 60 hours a week as a teacher at Bomaderry High School and the Illawarra Environmental Education Centre. Like many I spoke to in my informal survey of the community, Hinde also regularly volunteers outside the Valley, helping to find fossils on paleontological digs with the Australian Museum. Being a couple of days sporadically, it’s more than the couple of hours a month he does for the Valley groups, unless there’s a big project.
“With KVEG, after the fires, we were there putting all the feeders out, and the waterers out, putting all the homes up in the trees. Then we made the bandicoot bungalows, and then we started on the snake project to try and save the broadheaded snakes, making the fake rocks and putting them out.”
His volunteering is driven by, he says, selfish reasons: he’s quite fond of nature. “I’m trying to do what I can to make it better.” His commitment to RAKV, Hinde thinks, is probably partly motivated by the need he’s seen in his work as a teacher.
“We need to make a better new Australia. I think we should just work together to make a better place – that’s what reconciliation’s all about: a bit of truth-telling, a bit of acceptance. Let’s work together to make this place better.”
Like Hinde and Pryor, many who commit to formal volunteering tend to do so in line with their values, and the group validation of them contributes strongly to connection and belonging, but also optimism and hope. Johann Hari’s Lost Connections presents expert evidence that one of the root causes of depression and anxiety is the strong focus on oneself, and part of drug-free treatment is to focus on ‘us’, not ‘me’ – the common good, and providing help to others – because it boosts happiness hormones.
Serving a wider ‘us’ than the local area, the Kangaroo Valley East Timor Friendship Group (KVETFG) began almost 25 years ago. A small group of people concerned about the impacts of the military occupation in Timor Leste grew into a long-term committed partnership between Kangaroo Valley and the town of Remexio. KVETFG has delivered accommodation and scholarships, birthing centres, solar lighting to 1500 homes, and more, through fundraising efforts such as curry nights, garage sales and the well-loved Trek for Timor. Groups like this, though the local community is not their direct focus, can nevertheless shape it by supporting shared values and by spreading the good-mood benefits of community work through emotional contagion. (University of Sydney)
This all sounds rosy but in the Valley, as worldwide, volunteering is on the decline. Nationally eroded by Covid-19 lockdowns, especially in New South Wales and Victoria where we also have the most volunteers, we are not yet returned to pre-Covid levels and 2019 figures confirmed a long-term shrinking of the volunteer base Australia-wide. (Volunteers Australia) Despite increasing work hours and cost-of-living pressures, examples like Pryor and Hinde seem to disprove the theory that a lack of time is the cause. When I look back at my own parents and their cohort, it doesn’t seem to be generational either: double-full-time-employed households also coached, catered, facilitated meetings and groups, campaigned, picked up rubbish and algae and joined the volunteer emergency services. Figures suggest age is also not the cause: the largest group of new volunteers committing to formal volunteering was those aged 35 to 54 years: people with kids and careers, likely full-time. It must be something else.
“I think it’s a passion thing,” says Sally Latham, who runs her own business and magazine, is on the parents’ group at Nowra Anglican College, and volunteers as Treasurer/Public Officer for our own Valley Voice committee (and is the paper’s Advertising and Marketing Manager). She’s also a non-executive member of the board of Lands Managers who oversee the Pioneer Village Museum site. Latham could be right: informal volunteering is increasing. (Volunteers Australia)
“Filling those formal roles, that’s not the passion-driving stuff, it’s the necessary stuff but not necessarily passion-led and [comes with] responsibility.” In Volunteers Australia’s National Strategy for Volunteering 2022–2023, “red tape” was a primary reason people had left formal volunteering. Informal volunteering, which may take the same amount of time as formal volunteering but allows for community-minded people to be more flexible about when they offer that time, had increased its share. (The Conversation) It’s not that people don’t have time, Latham says, that’s just a politeness. “I think it’s more a fact of people want to spend their time in different ways, so if they’re going to be doing ‘work’, it needs to be earning something.”
The National Strategy for Volunteering highlights the dire impact too few volunteers could have on rural communities especially. Many services rely on them.
“One of my clients SALT in Nowra rely heavily on volunteers. So they have [governance roles] that are paid but their food distribution on a Tuesday, that’s all volunteers, and in their bookshop too.” SALT has many volunteers, some from the Valley, but the community need has increased exponentially and, Latham says, they still need more.
Even in the National Strategy paper, the exact cause of falling numbers is unclear but the solution might be in Johann Hari: focus on ‘us’ not ‘I’ to live a better life.
Selena Hanet-Hutchins
