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By now you’ve likely read Sabrina Robertson’s story about the vital work AmeriCorps volunteers are doing in Ferriday, La.

These 20-somethings are from all over the country, but they’re working in Ferriday and Clayton for eight weeks, doing clean-up and painting and whatever needs to be done at the request of the Concordia Parish Recreation District.

AmeriCorps and its affiliates such as Senior Corps are one of the biggest national volunteer programs, channeling the energy and passions of thousands of volunteers each year into underserved areas. Every two years, the organization partners with the U.S. Census Bureau to produce a report on the state of Volunteering in America – a fascinating task.

The latest data available, reported in 2023 based on 2021 surveys, found that nearly 51 percent of Americans over the age of 16 reported informally helping neighbors and organizations between September 2020 and 2021 (including the height of the COVID-19 pandemic) and more than 23 percent – some 60.7 million people – reported formally volunteering with an organization during that same timeframe. Those people who formally volunteered gave more than 4.1 billion service hours with an estimated economic value of $122.9 billion.

That’s impressive, even more so when considered in the context that formal volunteering rates dropped from 2019 to 2021. And the report offered some additional interesting tidbits:

The rate drop was substantially larger for women (8 percentage points) than men (5 percentage points) but women continued to volunteer at a higher rate.
Generation X (ages 41 to 56 in 2021) had the highest rate of all generations.
People ages 16-17 had the highest rate of all age groups at 28%, followed by people ages 45 to 54 at 27%.

Parents with children under 18 formally volunteered at a higher rate (30%) than those without children in their household (21%).
What the report revealed about Mississippi and Louisiana is equally as interesting.

In Mississippi, 484,611 formal volunteers contributed 24.5 million hours of service through organizations worth an estimated $553.3 million:

21.2% of residents formally volunteered through organizations and 95.5% of residents talked to or spent time with friends or family;
48.0% of residents informally helped others by exchanging favors with their neighbors;
69.9% of residents had a conversation or spent time with their neighbors.
In Louisiana, 783,022 formal volunteers contributed 44.1 million hours of service through organizations worth an estimated $1.2 billion:

21.9% of residents formally volunteered through organizations and 95.9% of residents talked to or spent time with friends or family
53.4% of residents informally helped others by exchanging favors with their neighbors
70.4% of residents had a conversation or spent time with their neighbors
But we didn’t really need a report to affirm what we already know: people here in the Miss-Lou are generous, with their time and their talents, in large ways and small. The pilgrimage events that put Natchez on the map for tourism are the result of volunteer efforts. The Natchez Balloon Festival and Angels on the Bluffs wouldn’t exist without the tireless work of volunteers who spend thankless hours year-round on the projects.

Volunteers like Betty Lou Hicks help make sure a monthly food distribution program – now offered through the ministries of St. Mary Basilica and with support of the community – provides food to 40 underserved people every single month.

And volunteers like Danille Nelson, who owns Bless this Mess in Vidalia, seamlessly move from coordinating a weekend-long regional shopping event to cooking dinner for the youth at the Vidalia First Baptist Church.

We all know these folks who simply show up and get things done, without fanfare or praise, and make our community better every day.

More important, we need to be telling their stories. That’s why starting in October, The Democrat will be featuring a Volunteer of the Week each Wednesday online and in print. We want to highlight the men and women who are part of those 4.1 billion hours of service in our nation each year, focusing on what they do for their neighbors and our community.

And we need your help in doing that. If you know of someone who should be featured as a Volunteer of the Week, please let us know. You can call 601-442-9101; email me directly at stacy.graning@natchezdemocrat.com;or send us a message through The Democrat’s Facebook page. We’ll take it from there.

My hope, and my hunch, is that we’ll soon be overwhelmed with the names of neighbors who are making a difference right here in the Miss-Lou. And that’s just the type of good news we want to share with you.

Stacy Graning is publisher of The Democrat. Email her at stacy.graning@natchezdemocrat.com.