Dear Reader,
My connection with TMCCA began as a Volunteer for their Social Support Groups. I was in the process of studying a Diploma of Community Services – Case Management and needed to complete a work placement in a voluntary capacity, with a community-based organisation. I am grateful to TMCCA Management and Managing Committee for providing a platform for me to complete this work placement and eventually to employ me as staff. I am also grateful for much more.

The hands-on knowledge gained through volunteering has become very real for me – neither literature nor a professor could evoke the experience. Through volunteering, the ‘receiving in the giving’ has become authentic and vibrant. It makes sense. I would like to share some more with you.

Fundamentally, the only thing I can really give to another is ‘myself’. All that I believe I have today (my clothes, my car, my family, my friends …) is not really mine. I can use them and enjoy them as long as I am here. Then I have to let it all go. Hence, in reality, nothing really belongs to me except ‘myself’. If I am to give something genuine to someone, I need to have it with me in reality. The only real thing I truly have and could give, is myself!

How do I give myself in the best possible way? Through time spent with those who need it most and for whom it matters. This experience lit up sometime during the course of volunteering at TMCCA. It’s been crystal clear ever since that as I give what is real for me, the person receiving it will experience it as real too!

As volunteering has been ‘real’ for me, I encourage anyone with the slightest inclination to volunteer, to give it a go. Whether it is driving someone to their medical appointments, serving a cuppa or just offering companionship, you will quickly notice how volunteering enriches your lifestyle – particularly in the present-day scenario!

It’s a good feeling for the giver and the receiver.

If you are curious to know more about how TMCCA volunteers roll, meet me at Tamborine Mountain Community Care, 42 Southport Avenue, Eagle Heights. Kindly call me on 5545 4968 before showing up – we could convene a day and time that suits us both in order to explore the real joy of volunteering.

Patricia Arora 
TMCCA
Volunteers & Programs Coordinator