I have been involved in a few different nonclinical volunteering experiences, however, I don't know if they would be looked upon favorably by medical schools. I've recently heard that we're supposed to volunteer outside of our communities and put ourselves out of our comfort zones, but I'm not sure that I've done that. So far I've volunteered at the food bank at my university and done art installations at my old middle school as well a nursing home I also do clinical volunteering at. Do I need to worry about this?
Does this count as nonclinical volunteering?
- Thread starter platypig
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Does the food bank only serve students, or can general community members shop there, too?
What do you mean by "art installations?"
The food bank only serves students and employees of the university. I painted murals and chairs but I also donated individual paintings.
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1) I'm guessing you might be required by membership to donate time for access to cheaper food? (That's how ours works, anyway.) I agree that's not the type of volunteering adcoms are looking for. If it's a different arrangement than what I described, then feel free to talk me into seeing it as a community service.
2) Is it your own paintings you "installed" like for an exhibition?
You might consider listing all your painting activities under Artistic Endeavors, but strictly speaking if you are volunteering your expertise to paint chairs for a school or nursing home in a utilitarian sense (not artistic), you could either use the Volunteer tag, or use Artistic Endeavors, or even Hobbies, and mention the community service aspect in your description.
Am I understanding the gist of your question correctly?
1) We don't get cheaper food or anything that I know of.
2) Sorry if I wasn't clear; the installations I referred to were the murals and chairs/desks/cabinets teachers requested to be painted. They are not utilitarian, but rather decorative. The paintings I donated (which I painted) were hung in the common rooms in the nursing home. Some of the floor supervisors asked me for paintings since they wanted to give the rooms less of a clinical feel. I can now see how they might be viewed as superfluous since art isn't really an essential part of life, but I wanted to volunteer a specific skill set that I had. I do have other paid artistic endeavors in case it seems like I'm donating finger paintings lol
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions! I am willing to take on another form of community service if these are not sufficient.
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1) Maybe you could explain your role better then.
2) I wouldn't view it as superfluous if that was the purpose at the nursing home. Now you've made it sound like a community service AND an artistic endeavor. How many hours did you do this on site activity?
And how about the school? What was the story there?
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Well you shouldn't worry about it that's silly. I think the food bank for your school is okay but you should really start looking for medical volunteering or underserved community volunteering (Community food bank would be good!)
Thank for the reassurance! I do have a decent amount of medical volunteering, but I will start looking for community food banks to volunteer at.
1) I put together the bags of food and hand them out.
2) It's a similar situation at the school. My middle school art teacher and principal periodically ask me and a few other former students to come back and paint for them. I've been doing this ever since high school. Sometimes it's helping the kids with the set for a play or painting something for a teacher. This summer we just did an outdoor mural for the playground. Taking into account only college hours, I spent ~75 hours at the school and another 75 at the nursing home.
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1) Where does the food come from? Why would faculty and employees be recipients? Is there a cost involved to be a receiver of the food? How does it compare with a regular grocery store?
2) If you began the activity in HS and continued into the college years, you may include the HS hours, though usually one breaks down the number of hours for each timeframe.
1) The food comes from donations of both cash and nonperishable foods. It's available to everyone with an university ID for free. Some employees of the university are paid close to minimum wage in an area where the cost of living is extremely high so I can see why they may need some help providing for their families.
2) Thanks! I will keep this in mind when filling in hours.
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1) Thank you for providing more details. As this situation was not what I had envisioned, I will back off on my previous stance and say this is a reasonable volunteer effort for you to list. Just curious: how did you come to volunteer there?
Also, when you list these on your application, you'll need to give a full, clear, concise picture of the activity so you'll get the full benefit of having it on the application, as additional details can't be extracted, like we can do here.
The food pantry is located near my old dorm so I came across it one day and thought it might be a good place to volunteer at.
Thanks for the advice! I will write a more comprehensive description for my application.
