Volunteers and paid employees
The park I am volunteering at hires part-time summer help and has some college interns. They all get a salary. They are in their late teens or early twenties, whereas I am seventy. I am doing maintena...
Forum Discussion
You are getting a lot of answers from people here, including some questioning your intentions.
My suggestion (which you can take or leave) is that you have a good long talk with YOUR supervisor, whomever that may be. Explain your concerns and your willingness to either work with these young and paid people, or to work alone. What does your volunteer agreement say? What are you getting as a result of your volunteer efforts (a free camp site?). If you are simply volunteering your time and work for no compensation whatsoever, then you have every right to be very specific about what you will do and how you will do it. If it is of value, the organization will be happy to oblige. If they don't want your free service, so be it.
I am speaking from some experience here, as I am a retired recreation program manager (including campgrounds and volunteers) from a federal agency. I do know this for certain: A volunteer/unpaid person CANNOT be a supervisor of paid employees. So someone that is a paid employee must be the supervisor of those summer students and interns. Whoever that person is, they are not fulfilling their responsibility by expecting you to supervise their people.
On the other hand, what some others have said here is true. Elderly volunteers have many skills that even agency people and agency supervisors may not have. There is real value in sharing your skills with others, especially young people who want to learn. But that is the key...they must want to learn. If there is resentment of you telling them what to do, again you need to talk to whomever you report to and clarify exactly what your role is to be.
I hope this helps.
My suggestion (which you can take or leave) is that you have a good long talk with YOUR supervisor, whomever that may be. Explain your concerns and your willingness to either work with these young and paid people, or to work alone. What does your volunteer agreement say? What are you getting as a result of your volunteer efforts (a free camp site?). If you are simply volunteering your time and work for no compensation whatsoever, then you have every right to be very specific about what you will do and how you will do it. If it is of value, the organization will be happy to oblige. If they don't want your free service, so be it.
I am speaking from some experience here, as I am a retired recreation program manager (including campgrounds and volunteers) from a federal agency. I do know this for certain: A volunteer/unpaid person CANNOT be a supervisor of paid employees. So someone that is a paid employee must be the supervisor of those summer students and interns. Whoever that person is, they are not fulfilling their responsibility by expecting you to supervise their people.
On the other hand, what some others have said here is true. Elderly volunteers have many skills that even agency people and agency supervisors may not have. There is real value in sharing your skills with others, especially young people who want to learn. But that is the key...they must want to learn. If there is resentment of you telling them what to do, again you need to talk to whomever you report to and clarify exactly what your role is to be.
I hope this helps.
