Volunteering begins with “wanting to be there, wanting to offer and wanting to dedicate time”, according to Konstantina Logotheti, head of marketing and communications at PwC Cyprus and director of the PwC Foundation.
In a column released this week, she spoke about her regular visits to elementary school classrooms for the Junior Achievement programme ‘Our Community’.
Logotheti said she often starts by asking children what volunteering means.
She explained that “the word is usually unfamiliar to them”, prompting her to describe volunteering as something that comes from choice, from the phrase “I want”.
She said that “acts of giving, whether small or large, are done because people choose to do them, adding that the feeling of offering creates a sense of contributing to something larger than oneself”.
This year marked her third consecutive participation in the PwC Foundation Volunteer Days, an initiative she said began with the idea of two people looking for a different way to give back to society through their workplace.
According to Logotheti, the idea was “immediately embraced within PwC Cyprus and received a particularly warm response when presented to employees”.
“Each year”, she said, “volunteers such as Georgia, Theoni, Stephani, Dimitra, Giorgos, Yianna, Christina and many others dedicate themselves to organising a range of actions, allowing people across the firm to choose how they wish to contribute.”
All activities, she added, “share a common element, love and the willingness to become part of a collective effort”.
The measurable outcome this year, Logotheti said, was 13 different actions involving 350 volunteers from across PwC.
The non-measurable outcome, she added, was “reflected in the emotions generated, happy faces, smiles, hugs and a sense of pride, both among volunteers and within the institutions supported, ranging from social organisations to animal shelters”.
For Logotheti, volunteering is not an occasional activity but a way of life and a state of mind.
She described it as something that could almost appear as a personal status, not “worried” or “happy”, but “offering”.
She said “she was born and raised in a city of six million people, where poverty and social need were highly visible”.
“Seeing children begging and people living on the streets”, she explained, “affected her deeply and led her to make a personal promise to help whenever and however she could, by doing something meaningful.”
“That promise”, she said, “was what shaped her decision to become a volunteer for life.”
Logotheti added that her experience at PwC and through the PwC Foundation has reinforced her belief that she is not alone in this mindset.
According to her, “the volunteering journey is shared with people of all ages and from every level of the professional hierarchy, many of whom participate year after year, choosing the action through which they wish to offer”.
“What matters”, she said, “is not how much someone gives, how often or in what form, but the decision to participate”.
“Even a small contribution can make a difference, as gratitude for what people have naturally leads to giving,” Logotheti concluded.
