We are able to do what we do because these people want to make a difference and make a little piece of history. Almost every campaign headquarters has at least 100 volunteers who help with various jobs including clipping news stories out of the paper, coordinating press visits, working with the Secret Service when a candidate is in town and doing things as minor as stuffing T-shirts in an envelope. At the Dole headquarters, fewer than 10 paid staff members run the program. Although at times the work that interns and volunteers do is very similar, if not exactly the same, the role of these two groups of people vary. Interns tend to hold a more definite schedule and are committed to putting a certain number of hours into the campaign per week.
Volunteers give their time when they want and in the amounts they want.
They can volunteer for as little as 15 minutes or as long as 40 hours a week. Eric Woolson, press coordinator for the George W. Bush campaign in Des Moines, described the role of an intern as more of a two-way street. We help them just as much as they help us. As I get further into my career, I have found it very enriching to work with these people who want to mentor you, learn from you and are so important to what we are doing. Woolson described the typical intern as a high school or college student, but that's not necessarily true of a volunteer.