10 Fun Facts from Volunteering in America:

1.  62.8 million adults served almost 8.1 billion hours through organizations in 2010. We know. The outrageous numbers are hurting our heads, too.

2.  Generation X (born 1965-1981) gave more than 2.3 billion hours of their time volunteering. That’s more than double the rate since 1989!

3.  The term “volunteer lifecycle” is the civic involvement that tends to increase as citizens feel a deeper connection to their communities through personal networks, their workplace and their children’s schools.

4.  Volunteer rates for young adults (ages 20-24) tend to be lower than teenage volunteer rates…

5.  …However, the national volunteer rate tends to increase with age until mid-life, with the peak age occurring between the mid-30s to early 40s!

6.  The top 5 states by volunteer rates are: Utah, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota.

7.  The Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan ranks number one for volunteerism among large cities…for the fifth year in a row. Congrats!

8.  Governors and mayors are actively encouraging volunteerism, recognizing those volunteers who make particularly large impacts.

9.  Some of the activities volunteers took part in: tutoring and mentoring, selling items at auctions to raise money, and collecting and distributing food.

10.  Researchers believe that the finding that the decline in volunteer rates in older adults has become less severe over time is explained by the fact that more Americans are staying healthier longer and that volunteering has become a more recognized strategy for staying healthy in older adulthood.