Libraries benefit from volunteers’ dedication

Last Updated on Tuesday, 01 September 2009 14:47

Pioneer Library System - From the Director

“Volunteers don’t get paid, not because they’re worthless, but because they’re priceless.” ~Sherry Anderson

Pioneer Library System is well aware of how priceless their volunteers are. This last year more than 500 volunteers gave 9,619.5 hours of their lives to their hometown libraries. 

According to Independent Sector (www.independentsector.org) and based on Bureau of Labor Statistics, the estimated dollar value of volunteer time in Oklahoma is $16.19.* Our volunteers have donated $155,739.71 worth of their time this year. That’s 4.8 full time employees based on hours.

Each of the nine branch libraries in PLS have book sales, in total these sales bring in more than $82,000. If you add that to the work hours contributed, you see just how grand their total contribution is. (By the way that total is more than $277,739.71).

*The value of volunteer time is based on the average hourly earnings of all production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls (as determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics). Independent Sector takes this figure and increases it by 12 percent to estimate for fringe benefits.