Have you guys ever volunteered at an lgbt center? I'm considering it for extra credit for a class and plus it seems kind of interesting. What are your experiences with those places. I'm a Bi guy by the way. Pic unrelated
Never volunteered at an LGBT shelter, but I have a lot of experience with participating and organizing volunteer work. I would imagine it depends largely on what you're actually doing; unless you're interacting directly with the people in the shelter (which you probably wont be) I imagine it would be like volunteering at any shelter.
stamper is my husbando btw
that seems like a really bad idea
>>5324516 for someone with no experience what would they have me do in any volunteer situation. What's the best place to volunteer ii your opinion? I love stamper too!
>>5324607
they'll put you wherever they need you, theres really no difference between experienced and inexperienced volunteers. most of the time at shelters (at least in my experience) it involves preparing/serving meals since its something they have to do everyday. a lot of times we get volunteers that just want to do the glamorous jobs, and are disappointed when they have to set up tables and chairs instead of getting to personally mentor underprivileged brown children.
personally i love volunteering at a packing facility for disaster relief care packages, because im socially awkward and don't like interacting with people, but preparing meals at shelters is one of my favorites too. .
if you're at all worried about it being difficult, dont. they're really appreciative of anyone that takes time out of their day to come and help, no matter how inexperienced they are.
>>5324773
Oh wow thanks for the reply. Cool I always feel like id get rejected from any type of work I apply for. I'm all for helping out with things in the background but how often do you interact with other people while volunteering? I wanna get out there and meet people too
I volunteer as a part of an lgbt community charity club. Basically a bunch of homos in the city that either do big donations or just large volunteer work and a casual party bi monthly.
I either help with the womens shelter or old folks place. There isn't so much a gay shelter. During the summer it's a kids bible camp thing, and rn it's a toy donations thing with the police.
But if you're just in there for a day they'll likely have you either sorting shit or food prep or just out of the way. At most center/volunteer places when they get a kid coming in for just some day of school credit you give him easy work to keep them out of the way. They'll be nice but if you aren't gonna stick with volunteering there's not point in really training you or getting to know you.
Is Stamper gay or bi or something? I remember hearing Chris talking about it but I couldn't tell if he was joking or not
>>5324882
Oh alright I'm trying to get into sociology and I just don't want to sit around taking classes I wanna help out some how. Has volunteering helped you in anyway or have you impacted anyone's life?
>>5324454
I was a volunteer help line counselor at a bi help line. I was a licensed counselor at the time, and it was the best way I could help.
I also was a primary contact person for a bi-group. The group was just a support group. The contact person's job was to vet new people, and tell them where the next meeting was.
>>5325221
I think he's bi. I hear he has a girlfriend. But he also talks about guys in a way would make me believe he's bi
>>5325307
How was that? Did you take training for that? Was it stressful? What kinds of problems did they face? What problems did you face? Sorry for bombarding you with questions it just interests me
>>5325328
They had some training materials, but I was already licensed so they just had me read them. Some help lines will train, but that is usually fro crisis intervention level, and the job of the help line worker is to get the caller to get into therapy with a proper therapist.
Some stress, because peoples lives can be on the line. Many suicide help calls.
Pretty much any problem you could think of we would get calls for.
Ultimately I burned out. Even with the help of my own counselor, all counselors must have a counselor they talk to, it was still hard on me. My life hadn't been easy when young, and I had been through a lot. Sometimes things hit way to close to home, or dredged up some long lost memory from my past.
>>5325301
It helped with my depression and I know I've helped a fair amount of people.
It's just kinda hard to kill yourself when you see people worse off. Or when you've just been helping someone. Like I can't justify it anymore because old lady I take care of is gonna be p bummed if I go out that way.
The one thing I don't think is brought up in charity work is how many fucked up people you see though. Like everyone imagines taking care of a sweet old guy or mentoring a cute little kid. Old dudes can be assholes that spit on you as you're trying to wipe up their literal shit. Little kids punch and curse all the fucking time. Drug addicts will rob you blind as you try to feed them.
There's more good than bad but if you stay in it for longer than a day you're gonna see some bad.
>>5325373
In what situations would you have to deal with people's literal shit?
>>5325414
Volunteered caretaking old folks. Fair amount of old peoples shit to deal with.
Wasn't so bad. No one was horribly disabled. Just emptied out the little bedside toilets. Gave baths sometimes. Prepare food. But old people don't always have the best aim at taking a shit.
It was really only the dementia kinda old dudes that'd spit on you though. Fucking kill me if I get alzheimers.
>turn 18 am move to a city, finally able to come out.
>find a GLBT center
>They need lots of help and I wonder why no one is volunteering
>End up treasurer, but also secretary and bitch who does the shit the old queeny president doesn't want to do.
>AIDs support group doesn't like me facilitating their meeting because I am a young negative boy who doesn't know the horrors of the 80's/HIV
>Work with the youth group
>14 year old falls in love with me, begs me to fuck him and continually tries to expose himself to me in the bathroom.
>schedule sports leagues.
>lesbians complain that softball the womens sport it on wednesday while bowling which men (and women) play gets to be on the weekend.
>Explain to them that the field is taken on Saturdays by the little league. Manage to get them a place to play on sunday. But they want their weekend so I need to move it to tuesday, but I am still sexist for not getting them the weekend first.
>Organize fund raiser
>as member of the counsel I put forward we use the money to redue the rec room, buy two new computers and allocate enough money for one youth nigh on saturday.
>40 year old gay are pissed at me because no 20 year olds are coming to our gay socials and they have no one to perv on, at the same time they are all perving on me.
>lesbians freak out that I am diverting money away from the lesbians (who didn't really show up for the fundraiser) and instead of worrying about computers I should be changing our sexist GLBT center to an LGBT center.
>One thing I did that I was proud of was expand the youth center days and hours
>kids had a place to go after school where they wouldn't be bullied and could meet other gay kids
>lesbians got mad because they wanted the center during youth hours
>tell me they needed lesbian book club from 3 to 5.
>give them a lesbian book club
>two weeks later lesbian book club is disbanded because no one came.
>Lesbians want 3-5 for lesbian yoga
>same shit, one one came
>>5325440
Most ridiculous thing to happen while I was there.
>Lesbians challenge gay men to softball to change the center to LGBT instead on GLBT.
>Lesbians have a team and practice regularly
>gay team is a mishmash of people
>gay team wins by a mile
>lesbians complain and complain
>organize a fund raiser to change the sign, stationary, website and listings to LGBT center of Anonvill.
>two lesbians actually came to participate.
>FUCKING LESBIANS.
>>5325440
Honestly I'm a cis lesbian and can confirm we just don't do shit number wise and are largely flakes.
Like after a lesbian pairs off that's it no longer gives a fuck for lgbt shit. Except the politicking sort.
>>5325464
Everything I did was misogyny and lesbian erasure.
Kids need a place to go after school so they won't be beat up. Well they are almost all boys, you just care about them because they are male. Why do they get the afternoon slot, can't they be here in the morning?
We need lesbian representation on the counsel but I don't have the time to volunteer.
I saw snacks at the alcohol and drug abuse meeting, why do you never bring us snacks? Oh they bring it themselves? Well why do you never let us use the coffee machine? Oh, anyone can pull it out but they have to bring their own coffee? I see a can right there, you just don't want to give it to lesbians.
>>5325440
Thanks for helping out!!!
>>AIDs support group doesn't like me facilitating their meeting because I am a young negative boy who doesn't know the horrors of the 80's/HIV
What a sucky attitude.
I wonder how many of them know the sinking feeling when finding out yet another fwb is ill? Still don't know how I managed to survive.
>>5325855
Shit that's scary. How often does that come up with people you do it with?
>>5325301
>Oh alright I'm trying sociology to get into >sociology
Enjoy finding a job with your useless (pseudo)-"science" degree and your debt
>>5324454
I've been to a few condom packing parties where you put together little packs of condoms, lube and info. They were fun and got pizza out of it.
I used to go to an LGBT center when I was a teen and just moved to the US.
It was the tipping point that transformed me from a very tolerant and liberal person to a nationalist who can't even see rainbow colored hair without drawing a ton of negative assumptions.
Anyway, that is to say that as a volunteer you need a lot of patience
>>5331067
Did you make small holes in the condoms?
>>5330825
Whats your major then? Whats wrong with sociology?
>>5331067
I've been meaning to get involved in that at the local center (especially if pizza is involved like dang), though the one that's local(ish) to me has a policy that you can't use their mental health services (including support groups) if you work for them, and I don't know if that extends to volunteers.
And dangit I need that support group. Probably something for me to ask about next time I pop in.
I volunteered a couple of times during an LGBT family play day. A ton of gay couples bring their kids for holiday activities so that the parents can meet other LGBT parents and so that their kids can make friends. It was extremely cute and I had fun! Lots of the kids were, for lack of a better word, "homonormative." Boys proclaiming that they're gonna marry a fireman, girls telling Santa that they want a princess for Christmas. Conservatives would have lost their minds but it's no different than when kids say straight stuff. Just imitating what's around them. Anyway, positive experience.
>>5331147
>I was tolerant until I was a teenager who went to one LGBT center
The sad part is I think you feel like you're being honest with yourself here.
>>5333012
Not that anon, but nothing really.
It's just a useless "science" and you're wasting your time and money.
You might as well get a degree on gender studies or fat studies.
>>5325452
LGBT rolls of the tongue better than GLBT, nothing to do with queer hierarchy or whatever.
During college I was a student teacher so I was allowed to be a club sponsor for the LGBT-Straight Alliance at the high school along with the guidance counselor. She admitted to me the way she's supposed to deal with LGBT issues is flawed. Most notably, their literature brochures and stuff mention that coming out is overcoming self hatred and self esteem issues, but she argues that it's more external fear of rejection than internalized hatred, and I agree
