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in Omagh County, chosen spot of all the earth as far as nature is concerned, According to the famed plant wizard Luther Burbank Diverse County, with 1,010,000 acres of land and 1574 miles of scenic roadways, the county is rightfully famed for its agriculture did a culture, industry

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and recreation as well as for the amazingly successful ethnic and economic mixture of its more than 340,000 residents on for the forward looking philosophy of its local governing bodies. Now we invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in the eighties with your host

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Rich McGlinchy. How are ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another edition of Sonoma County in the eighties. We're gonna be talking about a very important subject today. We're gonna talk about the subject of volunteering. As you probably know, most of our governmental agencies have had their problems

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physically over the years, and also many, many people in the community have had a desire to do something after they retired. Or maybe for any other reason. You'll find that out from our specialist here tonight. But I think that the idea behind volunteering is vitally important.

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And certainly we have the volunteer coordinator for County of Sonoma and we have one of our key volunteers for the county. Sonoma would have talked to both of them. On the right of your screen is Dawn Matheny. I don't Don is the volunteer coordinator for the

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County of Sonoma. And on the right is Bonnie Gonzalves. And Bonnie is the volunteer coordinator for the age Project public. Hi. How are you? To pleasure. Thank pleasure to have you as we were saying, and certainly not facetiously, the subject you're going to talk about is

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a deadly serious. Yes, it it into that. Just a moment. Ladies and gentlemen, if you are interested in helping your fellow man, your community, that's everything. You would want to see the phone numbers at the end of my program and you may want to call doing

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math because we all need your help. And I think doing could probably clean that far better than I doing. The county runs its own volunteer office, which is actually you that's gone mad. But, uh, many the audience would like to know specifically. What do you do

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capacity? The, um, the volunteer office tries to place people in different volunteer jobs inside county government. Um, so there's a whole variety of different ways that people can volunteer, And I'm also there to provide support to the departments so that they can run good volunteer programs.

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So, uh, dual purpose of really trying to serve the public in terms of placing them as well as the departments in terms of helping them out. Well, as I said a moment ago, I think I triggers data. Maybe even, is it. I love the government. Open

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government agencies, health agencies, Schools have run into a lot of problems in the past few years. Certainly the past decade with budget. Uh, money is not there anymore. As a result, they have looked to the public in general and asked the public in general, do you

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want to help? But I think the thing that's far more important than that is there so many people out there that have time and have an interest in things we don't know anything about. Now, how do you start trying those people? Um, please give me a

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call. I can go over with someone who's interested. The whole variety of different positions where they can help either. Um, lifetimes volunteering could be very self serving. You can volunteer in order to, uh, go out there and and be more competitive on the job market. You

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can also volunteer from personal satisfaction of wanting to help in your community and those air you know, two of the prime motivators. And for people that that want to help, Um, I'm sure I can find a place. Well, local government health agencies have a lot of

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fascinating jobs, a lot of fascinating operations you really don't know about. And many people who do have time do want to make a contribution to society into their community. Confined something very do. One thing I want to differentiate a little bit here is you are the

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volunteer coordinator for the County of Sonoma. How does this different from the Volunteer center on Fourth? That's always good to clarify. The Volunteer Center on Fourth Street is a private nonprofit, and it serves the whole of the community. It serves all the nonprofits as well a

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state federal, and it has all of our county jobs listed there. Um, I, on the other hand, have a smaller piece of the pie in just referring people to positions within county government. Different county departments specific. You you are a special entity to yourself, and you

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deal with just the county government in the enterprise. That's right. That's right. Now, if I if I am unable to place someone because they want to do something that's that's specialized, I will refer them to the volunteer center because there are lots of possibilities at the

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volunteer center. Um and it, uh, my prime interest is in I I want to help the county. I also want to see people get placed where it's a good placement for them. So if I can't help them out, I'll refer them to the volunteer center. Well,

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sincerely, I know that you do that well because you've preferred people to me work with me and the public information function over there. And it's been a delight to have them with me because they were people that were interested. There were people have made a great

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contribution. Thanks. I have never done so publicly. I want to thank you publicly for those people. What kind of things do your volunteers do with General? We touched a little bit on this. Okay, well, again. Back to back to the idea of some of the volunteers

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do things in order to change careers or to get experience that will make them more competitive on the job market. Um, so along that line, we have jobs that are more clerical of nature sometimes say, say, a woman who's been out of the job market for

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a long time. The clerical field has really changed and is much more, um, oriented towards computers. Well, let's say someone knows how toe type real well that hasn't been out there and doesn't know how to operate a variety of computers. They can take a job. Um,

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let's say doing doing some data processing a project for one of the departments. And, um, you know what? The end of three months or so be a lot more competitive on the job market because they have contributed this time. So, um, so that's one kind of

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job or the clerical jobs on one side. On the other side, there are the rial helping people kinds of jobs, people helping people, as in the AIDS project, as in a program called Help for Teen parents. The Social Service Department has a variety of, um, volunteer

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jobs where you are linked up with a disadvantage child or working with a, um, a parent who's involved in in the Child Protective Services. So, um, so there's a whole range and it goes from the clerical, too, to the role helping people from that heart place.

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Well, I was just going to add that a little while ago. You kind of touched on why some people volunteer. But why do people volunteer? You give us kind of the scope of that. Well, um, I talked to people who are, uh, new in the community

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and want to get to know people in their community. That's one reason. Another reason again is the resume and the work experience and another prime oneness wanting to help wanting to make a difference in in an area or a field such as pregnant teens or AIDS

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or, um, disturbed Children or something like that. People can also, uh, students can also use it for college credit, which I, you know, I think kind of kills two birds with one stone, so to speak, because you could get college credit as well is really preparing

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yourself to get out there in the job market, which is more and more fiercely days. OK, one other thing I wanted to say it comes to mind is in the past, people that have come through my office through through our volunteer programs have been gone on

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to become a graphic artist newspaper advertising woman now in television, huh? Another one is a publicist for a business company into a republic Information on other places. Now, they all have had taken the the time and been kind enough to write back and tell us that

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a lot of what they used today they were able to glean from working. It does. It does. It can make a great difference in a job search to have, um, put in some time get get some recommendations. One other area that I that I neglected to

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mention, which is a large, uh, and also is a large reason is people were retired, uh, who want to stay connected to the work world and want to have that, you know, sense of giving to their community report were touched on that. A little later, I

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was gonna ask you a question. But I really got about three or four years. So let me just throw this at you. You're a volunteer. And one of the first things I wanted to ask. Why did you volunteer? Secondarily, what do you feel is in it

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for you? And lastly wanted to get involved with County AIDS Project. What have gotten out of that? First of all, volunteering was a new concept for me, and it's given me inner growth. And the reason that I got into the AIDS project is being a nurse.

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I could see the need in this AIDS was going to go someplace, and I wanted to be able to help along the way. I wanted to give something to my community. And the age project itself is the one you actually got involved with. Working with three

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dawn. Okay to dog. Okay, uh, tell us a little bit about what you're doing there. And what have you gotten out of that experience? Okay. I'm a coordinator for the AIDS project for the volunteers. And what I do there is help people to my God help

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people to what? Get tickets to get involved in it and teach him what to do. And you supervise this whole operation. That right? What have you personally got? Sense of inner growth. A feeling of doing something for somebody else. That's I think that perhaps makes me

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feel good. Right? That's probably one of the strongest emotions that the volunteer feels. Or maybe one of the better things they get out of that, Uh, you're kind of in the due role of of a volunteer coordinator. You're a nurse, first of all, and you kind

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of in the dual role of a volunteer coordinator, and, uh, and what volunteer opportunities and actually exist. You run the volunteers for the apartment, right? Okay. Now, when you're talking to those folks, what do you tell them they're gonna do? What can they do to help?

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Okay, we have the information and referral line, which is the telephone line, and they talked to people. An answer. Questions Refer them to, uh, if they need medical care, or tell them where they can get the test for the HIV. And, uh, we also have the

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clinic volunteer, and they give out information and, uh, maintain confidentiality and they have to be able to work under stressful situations. Then we also have the community outreach who helped set up that person will help set up materials and maintain simple records for the public health

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nurses. Okay, what kind of skills body are necessary for someone to be a volunteer for your Okay, First of all, I have to have compassion and they have to be sent sensitive to all cultural and social groups that are at risk for AIDS. They have to

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be able to communicate appropriately with the diverse public on a sexual or a personal basis. And they have to maintain confidentiality. Extremely important. You know, age is a fairly recent phenomenon. That's not a very expressive word, probably for it. But it is a recent phenomenon on

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we have not. We're not dealing with this at all. 10 years ago, it seems like, but probably the last five or six years. It has become monumental in size, and it augers well to be the worst epidemic. Perhaps this country's ever know. Yes, it is. Your

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volunteers you say they need compassion. Do Certainly The sad part about this is as we know it today. It's an absolutely fatal disease. What's once contracted? Uh, how do your voluntary deal with. They just have to be understanding that this is a disease. It's it's not.

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It's not who the person is that has it. It's the disease itself that is so destructive, and you have to understand that. And they have to want to make that person life, Give it a little bit of quality is much closer, can absolutely. I know, I

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know you've been overwhelmed by this and talking about times I could. I know it on your face and I know how you feel about that. Well, when I ask you something else about the volunteers up there, do you actually have a training program? Yes, we dio

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our next training. OK, tell me about when the next one isn't and or and what it consists of. Mainly it consists of three days of very intense training on how to deal with the different groups in our in our area, how to give out referral information,

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what to talk about. It's going to explain to you so that you can understand exactly what this diseases, how it devastates the person that has it and how it devastates the families and the loved ones that are related to to the people who have the disease

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and also what it's doing to our community. What the disease is doing to our community and that volunteer is also going do. And you might well know this be touch tremendously themselves. Their life is gonna be affected in a way it couldn't buy anything else. I

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don't think you cannot deal with this disease and not be touched by it. You just can't one of the things I hope that your old noticing as the money is wearing a very unique little thing around her neck. There, she tells me that when she was

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married, her husband, product of the world, he gave it to let me go back over you for a friend. Uh, how many volunteer job do you have in the county? That President? Uh, probably recruiting right now for about 30. Um, there are more that are filled,

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that which would probably double that number. But no. Bony is running the program for the AIDS project. She's coordinating volunteers up there. So she said were kind enough to stay true. You she got involved in this? Are there other such volunteer programs within the county. Huh?

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Um, one of the other programs that's large and size and organized and has a training program as well as the help for teen parents where, um they're bringing on volunteers to really help in the area of teenage pregnancy. And, um, that's an excellent program. And in

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fact, our last show was when we did this last year was on the teen pregnancy focused in on that. Yeah. Um, social service department has a very large volunteer effort, and they're a variety of different programs. Within that, um, a couple of them have training components

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as well. Community Hospital has an auxiliary that's very active and has a really wonderful program that's just begun. This, uh, well, I guess it's about a year old now, The love and Hug club, where volunteers air brought into provide extra attention to the infants and the

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toddlers. The Children. Um, because I guess they be teenagers as well who are hospitalized in the pediatrics ward and the intensive care unit of the hospital. Um, that's another real exciting program. Menopause right here on the station. Bringing the public a public service announcement will come

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back, and we're gonna talk to you more talk to you. Especially about the new valley of the moon dependent home. I've told me about you out there. General money, Gonzalves, John Anthony and I will return in just a moment. Happy birthday care. You've been working hard

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for 40 years. You deserve a wish. I wish for food for hungry people in Africa, Asia and Latin America wish for clean water, health care, new forests, improved roads and farm lines and wish for 40 more years of support from generous, caring Americans. Happy birthday care.

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And may all your wishes come true when you bend a helping hand, you give yourself way. Becoming something so much more than words could ever say, John Denver asking you to make your united way pledge now, thanks to you, it works for all of us. United

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Way Won't you give today the United Way? Bring happiness again. Welcome back to this edition of So don't count in the eighties a very important program because we're talking about something that you could be a vital part of. We're talking about volunteering we're talking to on

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the right of your screen dog. Matheny believe this Sonoma County volunteer coordinator and on the left. Your screen body, Gonzalves and Bonnie is the coordinators, is a nurse. She's also the co ordinator for the Age Project Volunteer Program. A little earlier in the program, you probably

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noticed that Bonnie choked upon us for a moment. And let me tell you something. She has been, um, so vitally involved in the stage project that sometimes in just discussing this, that's her compassion for you. So I want you to know that, uh, you told me

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before we left. There were other volunteer programs in the county and women left. I also mentioned just recently I was out of the former Dependent unit, now the Valley of the Moon Children's home, having a great change. The name and a couple of people were there

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and were getting awards. Incidentally, for volunteer effort, we could do it. Oh, yes, yes, they were not. They run a good volunteer program out there, and all I've done is refer some people out there who worked out real well. It's, um uh, it's a home for

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Children who have been abused or abandoned, or somehow their home situation has collapsed temporarily. Needle. That's right. That's right. And So they're put out there on, ah, temporary basis. And the volunteers can really make it a lot more personable, a lot more home, like by provide

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providing that extra attention to the kids out there And, uh, that that's a job that can be done evenings and weekends and in small blocks of time. And, um, and they do have an orientation on Sunday afternoons almost on a monthly basis. So that's another great

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program for people to get involved with. It sure is. And I noticed when I was out there, the volunteers, no one's were honored, but a couple of special ones for specific projects. But the other volunteers and they're feeling for those Children and Children feeling for them,

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it was really touching. So if anyone in our audience at this time bag is the love of kids, oh, they could well contact you if they're interested. Assisting kids who really need assurance of love for a period of time. I think especially through volunteering, you really

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can make a difference in someone's life. And it may be it may be small, but it, uh, it does make a difference. And then the dependent, I gotta retrain myself. The value of the moon Children's Center certainly is an example of that. We're gonna have to

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learn to say that I like it was called Sonoma County Dependent Unit, which was descriptive. In a sense, it just recently transferred from me being run by the probation department to the Social Service Department, which seems to be a good idea and at the same time,

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in order to make the change rather completely changed the name to the Valley. Childrens, I think so, does care centers taking a job, and it's a delightful place, and it's the reason that there is not so delightful. But the fact that it is a delightful facility

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Mike McCurry volunteer work because kids are great are their job. Do your volunteering bureau that might appeal to people who already work for Well, um, the dependent home is a good example. You can go out there on an evening or on a weekend and put in

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2 to 3 hours and on a regular weekly basis. But that can really make a difference. And the Tutor companion program, through Social services, is very much modelled on a big brother, Big sister um, kind of relationship with one on one with the needy child that

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can be done. Evenings, weekends, Um, as well. There's the regional parks department, which is kind of volunteering that we haven't really touched upon, um, in the Parks Department. They use volunteers to walk trails on a regular basis, and, uh, you can get your exercise as well

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as helping out the parks. They have volunteers that, um, open the gates on a regular basis because the Ranger isn't able to get to that park at 8 a.m. every morning. And so the volunteer will be out walking their dog and open the gate. Um, so

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the you know that there are some opportunities in there as well as the fact that the Parks Department is going to beginning beginning a docent program where they will be training people drew on a formalized basis. That's right to do nature walks and bird walks and

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natural history of the park walks through some of the county's parks, which again, um, can be done on, uh, some weekend time is well, that's something by interest, A lot of people, because they, like, first start being in our part of the park system we have

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here is really amazing. Beautiful. And then learning about them and then being able to take people on a tourist, right? Yeah. How many volunteers do you have? A pair in the project. We only have about 20 right now. $20. Quite a number. Now, do they? Are

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they there every day of now? Okay. Some people only give two hours a week. Some people are able to give a little more. Some people can't give that much. But we do appreciate whatever you can give. Uh, what are your When can you be found here

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in General? Friday's answering the phone Friday in the afternoon and Thursday Tuesdays. I'm at the clinic in the afternoon and then at different times because I also do feel in work before we go. Now we want to be sure to remember to give the phone numbers

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for you up there on day for you. Just suppose, let's hope that someone out there is interested in what you're talking about and wants to do something about it. How did they get involved? Any of the positions that you have been disgusting thus far. Call me

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now. I'm my office is two word right? Calling. My office is only funded half time, but there's always a receptionist to answer that answers the phone. And if someone leaves a message, I can get back to them the next day usually. And the number it was

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5 to 72317 5 to 72317 Right. I've memorized it because your number up there how can they reach you? They want You want to do volunteer work Or if you want your questions answered concerning AIDS. 579 4327 5794327 Rebellion That that will get directly. Todo yeah,

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get directly to you. Okay. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we said earlier that the AIDS epidemic fades. Illness throughout the United States augers well to be one of the most devastating epidemics in history of our country. And as a result, if you has resulted what you've heard

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Bonnie consultancy today about that project are interested in helping. We sincerely hope you will call a phone number because you certainly are needed. Uh huh. You said to me recently, wretch volunteer field is really changing. But you didn't say anymore because you were saying it. So

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how is well, there's, Ah, there's a couple of real important ways how the volunteer world is changing. I think, um, one thing that the AIDS project really brings out as more and more volunteers are being asked to help out with social problems. And there are, you

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know, when when something comes up in our society or that arises as a problem or an epidemic or something, there just isn't the resource immediately there to deal with it. And volunteers air really at the forefront of dealing with problems in our society. For one thing,

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now that's not new. That's that's always been around. What is changing within that is that more and more families, um, are having two people in the work world rather than, you know, the the traditional male going out there and earning the money. Um, which means that

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there's the the image of the housewife with extra time on her hands is ah, not doesn't hold as your stereotypic volunteer anymore. No. Um And in fact, also, um, uh, your retiree is not the only kind of volunteer. Uh, that's out there any more. More. And

00:29:47.460 - 00:30:05.620

more. There are two people in the work world. Um and so people are volunteering who want to be able to have evening and weekend spots to do. If anybody wants to know more about volunteering with the county, we could have them contact you at 5 to

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7. That's right. The one That's right. That's right. Yeah. In fact, Bonnie may refer them back to me if she talks to them. So I first step here. I'm sorry that we have to be so abruptly. We've got to get off here. We start time. Thank

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you. Protected. Thank you very much. Thank you. On behalf of everybody for the job. Okay. Don't always Okay, General, We were talking about volunteering, Talking dog Matheny and Bonnie Gonzalves Don is our county volunteer coordinator and money. Gonzalves is the volunteer coordinator for the age project.

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My name is Richman, 20. I'll be back next week for the county government member of the county government. Family. I should say or related agency until then. So long. Good luck tonight. Could help to each and every one of