New data about volunteering in the U-S is good news for South Dakota. Every other year, the independent government agency AmeriCorps works with the Census Bureau to track how many people are signing up for volunteer work.
Nationally, the COVID pandemic appears to have cut into volunteer efforts, but the latest report shows South Dakota is tied for fifth for formal volunteering, which includes helping others through nonprofits.
AmeriCorps CEO Michael Smith says nationally the good news is informal volunteer numbers remained steady.
“People continued to shovel the walks for their neighbors, they continued to ask their homebound neighbors, or maybe their immune-compromised neighbor, ‘Do you need me to go to the grocery store for you?'”
When looking at trends, Smith says they’re especially interested in documenting innovative volunteer work that came about during the public health crisis.
“We heard seniors started to teach themselves how to use iPads, and they taught other people so that they can continue doing virtual volunteering.”
South Dakota’s formal volunteer rate for 2021 was just over 34%.
Overall, the AmeriCorps report says more than 60 million people across the U-S formally volunteered with organizations in 2020 and 2021. That number more than doubled when looking at people who helped their neighbors and community without any group affiliation.
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