HuffingtonPost - Since he lost his job as a senior project manager at a pharmaceutical company in August 2008, Peter Kieselbach of Bucks County, Pa. has devoted more and more of his time to volunteering as a technical adviser at FIRST, helping oversee events where teams of high school kids build competing robots.

"It's a lot of fun, it's really exciting -- really high pressure but in a good way," said Kieselbach, whose supervisor estimates he's given 40 days so far this year.

"I've said to him now since he lost his job that I hope he calls me and says, 'Donald, I can't do it anymore because I got a job,'" said Donald Bowers, a regional director for U.S. FIRST in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. "He continues to give to us while he deals with his own issues. A lot of people wouldn't do that."

The New York Times reported in March 2009 that the Great Recession had created a "flood" of volunteers from the ranks of the unemployed. Data released by the government in January showed a that 22.9 percent of the unemployed volunteered in 2009, up from 22.3 percent in 2008.

read full Arthur Delaney Huffpost blog article

Thankfulness - Volunteering