Finding Volunteering - rant and advice

I work FT and my son just graduated and off to college. I started looking for volunteering opportunities early this year after all the college application drama passed and he was accepted. Figured it would be easy and quick to find a volunteer position at a hospital. WRONG!
I live in the NYC and sent volunteer applications to all the NYP hospitals and one of the summer clinics at Einstein - maybe 9-10 applications.
Only one place accepted me as a language ambassador for Spanish speaking patients! And even then that took a long time for me to actually start because the volunteer training, medical exams, they lost my health clearance but they found it, then shadowing one of the current ambassadors.
Took nearly 4 months for me to actually start the gig! I am pretty happy so far as I get to help Spanish speaking patients and the schedule is very flexible. I will have plenty of hours accumulated from now until I apply next year but if I had known it would be this long and tedious I would have started last fall.
Just like Dr. Gray always says - apply early and apply broadly!
Happy Volunteering!

Hi! Thank you for your post! Dr. Gray covered your question/advice during Session #170!

Thank you,
Team MSHQ