Profiles in Compassion: Volunteering for a Meaningful Life: The Rewards of Helping Others

Enlightening, moving and sometimes light-hearted, Profiles in Compassion tells the inspiring stories of people who volunteer for causes that change and even rescue lives. In doing good works, these volunteers often save themselves, too. As authors Dirk Johnson and Robert O. Carr illustrate, these are people who answer crisis line calls at three in the morning, visit elderly people who ache with loneliness, counsel those with eating disorders or gambling addictions, partner with therapy dogs to bring joy to disabled children, use their hammers and nails to build wheelchair ramps for homebound people of modest means. Volunteers have shaped the nation’s history, from the Underground Railroad to the suffrage movement to efforts to curb climate change. Twelve-step groups rely on volunteers, as do basketball leagues in neighborhoods where violent street gangs lurk. The health and emotional benefits of volunteering are clear. Study after study has found it brings lower blood pressure, a sense of purpose, longer lives.