Hello and welcome to all our readers who were kind enough to visit our website and support us. This is our newest venture – a blog dedicated to exploring the most important social causes in the United States right now, as well as volunteering, which can significantly help those in need.
We hope our blog gives you the necessary information as to which social causes require urgent help and are in need of volunteers. We hope, most of all, that together we can help those in need and make our country a better place for us, and the generations to come.
We will dedicate the first post on our blog to some of the most pressing social causes today by using recent poll findings. We will also tell you a little bit more about the history of volunteering in the United States, which might inspire you to become a volunteer yourself.
The Most Pressing Social Issues in the United States Right Now
Rather than present you with one survey, we decided to look at various polls conducted in the last two years to see which of the social causes overlap and which place they take on the list.
After much deliberation, we came up with this list, combining findings from many polls. We decided not to list them based on importance, because they are all important, as shown by the thousands (or millions) of responders.
Here’s our comprehensive list of the most important social causes in America right now:
- Poverty
- Climate Change
- Voting Rights
- Abortion Rights
- Cost of Healthcare
- Cost of Education
- Lack of Affordable Housing
- Systemic Racism
- Discrimination
- Crime
- Discrimination
- Immigration
- Terrorism
- Gun Control
- Income Gap
- Hunger
- Housing costs
- Election Integrity
History of Volunteering in the United States
The history of volunteering in the United States is actually older than our country, and some say that if it weren’t for volunteering, our country would not have existed at all. Some of the first recorded cases of volunteering stretch back to colonial times, and we discovered that volunteering was a community-lead effort to make said community better.
Usually, volunteering was associated with faith-based charity, which means that different parishes asked their members to donate to important causes and/or to volunteer for them in the name of Christ.
Then in the middle of the 18th century, an interesting volunteering option opened – overturning British rule. The Revolutionary War would not have been possible without the people who volunteered; private militias made of ordinary citizens fought in battles as well, while others prepared meals for the soldiers and housed them.
The Second Great Awakening, a period of spiritual growth in the early 19th century, saw many new Christian denominations that sparked social reform as well. Although this period is characterized by a revival of the Christian faith, many people begin to see volunteering with sort of secular lens and were encouraged to support the social causes they believed in.
During this time, the first charitable organization opened their doors in America’s big cities. Some of these organizations such as YMCA, the Salvation Army, and the American Red Cross, still exist today and they boast of a large number of volunteers and sizable amounts of donations each year.
Later, the philanthropic nature of volunteering mixed with the political. The most famous example is the Abolitionist Movement whose mission was to end slavery in the United States. Many people donated to the abolitionist cause and they also volunteered and provided advocacy for the unheard.
When the Civil War started, these volunteering efforts were more than doubled. In addition, the war saw many people who helped the soldiers offering them food and shelter, similarly to the volunteers in the Revolutionary War. Many women became nurses and helped those hurt on the battlefield.
By the late 19th century and early 20th century, volunteering was encouraged by the newly created charitable organizations such as Rotary Club. Volunteering became a regular part of life and allowed one to have their voice be heard by directly supporting efforts to make this country a better place.
Another big upheaval, the Great Depression, again required the need for volunteers who’d work at soup kitchens and homeless shelters. The silver lining is that volunteering became a more concentrated effort.
This effort was needed to help those impacted by the First and Second World Wars. Volunteering again became a patriotic cause like in the Revolutionary War and volunteers were tasked with providing materials for the American army fighting abroad.
The Civil Rights Movement gave again voice to political activism and volunteering that persists today. The following decades saw volunteering and charitable institutions be recognized on federal and international level with government resources being allocated to charities in the US and abroad.