In the past 10 to 15 years, Marcia Epstein has witnessed a steady decline in volunteers at Headquarters Counseling Center.

Epstein, who is the director of the center, has been with the agency, which provides crisis counseling by phone and in person, for 35 years.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Epstein said Headquarters had from 80 to 85 volunteers manning phones. The organization now has about 40 volunteers taking phone calls and providing one-on-one, walk-in counseling.

“For us, this is a critical issue,” she said. “We rely on volunteers to make sure we can provide counseling 24 hours a day.”

David Morrissey, manager of the Roger Hill Volunteer Center, said it’s difficult to pinpoint why some organizations have seen a dramatic decline in volunteer numbers. But he said it may be that people tend to shy away from organizations requiring training and a long-term commitment.

“I know we’re helping people do more with short-term or one-time event volunteering,” Morrissey said. “I think people have a desire to make a community difference, but the time commitments and the possible training that goes along with some volunteer positions — sometimes people just aren’t comfortable with it.”

He said it’s difficult to pin down the number of people volunteering in Douglas County. There’s no real way of knowing if there has been a decline or increase. But Morrissey said his group helped pair about 800 people, most of whom were affiliated with a church or school organization, with volunteer opportunities in 2003 and expects about the same or more in 2004.

Nationally, 64.5 million people volunteered at least once between September 2003 to September 2004. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the percentage of people volunteering held steady between September 2003 and 2004 and September 2002 and 2003.

The data on volunteering was collected through a monthly population survey taken in September. The monthly survey includes about 60,000 households and also gathers information about employment and unemployment.

Roger Hill Volunteer Center

“A lot of people do some volunteering,” Epstein said. “Maybe they work for a business that supports volunteering. Lots of people do some volunteering for some project event. Lots of people volunteer at their church or child’s school. But not as many people do things outside their normal social circle as they used to do.”

Based on a U.S. Department of Labor report, 34.4 percent of people surveyed had volunteered with a religious group while 27 percent volunteered with educational and youth services. Additionally, another 12.4 percent performed activities mainly for social or community service organizations and 7.5 percent volunteered most of their time at hospitals or other health organizations.

Though volunteering with youth-oriented organizations ranked high, Becki Carl Stutz, program director for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Douglas County, said her organization struggles to find volunteers to match with children.

The group has 152 children matched with big brothers or big sisters, she said. But there are 49 boys and 15 girls waiting to be matched.

Carl Stutz said commitment is probably one big reason some don’t volunteer with the group. But, she said, people just need to spend a short amount a week with the child they are paired with and can do activities that would normally be done, such as cooking dinner or going to a movie.

“Another factor that may go into it is that a person does have to go through a fairly lengthy and in-depth screening,” Carl Stutz said. “We want to make sure our volunteers are safe people. For someone who wants to volunteer immediately, they could end up losing interest because the screening process can take up to four weeks.”