Kasey Kelly started volunteering in April last year. 

For 10 weeks Ms Kelly volunteered in Oodnadatta in South Australia. That was followed by four days volunteering in Melbourne where she marched through the streets in the name of Aboriginal land rights.

Ms Kelly’s next volunteering stint will be for two weeks in the Northern Territory.

Dubbo is a city built on volunteers. From the local op shops to those who give their time out at Taronga Western Plains Zoo, our city wouldn’t be the same.

While volunteering is indeed a selfless act, Ms Kelly admits it’s not only changed her life on the inside, but has actually helped her job prospects as well.

She’s gone from struggling to find work while studying at university, to having job offers thrown her way.

Even the community has gotten behind Ms Kelly.

Not only have been been generous in donating money, they’ve taken it a step farther and started giving her items to take to the Northern Territory as well.

And let’s not forget our volunteer firefighters.

Volunteer firefighters will be out and about on Saturday at Dubbo as a country honours them and their colleagues for their service.

It’s National Red Balloon Day, a way to say thank you to our firies.

The day was created to celebrate and appreciate the men and women in the community who frequently leave their families and homes to help save others.

Smaller acts of volunteering will also be undertaken on Sunday for the annual Clean Up Australia Day.

Even picking up rubbish makes such a huge difference in our community.

Over the past 27 years volunteers during Clean Up Australia Day have donated more than 32 million hours at more than 171 thousand locations across the country. 

Together they have removed the equivalent of 344 thousand ute loads of rubbish. Wow.

No matter what way you want to help out it would be great to see more people giving up their time to help make just a small change in someone else’s life As Ms Kelly says, it would be especially great to see more young people taking up volunteering.