Busy, Burnt Out… Meet the Mums Volunteering Anyway

It goes without saying that most mums don’t have the time or energy to even cover the basics these days. Between work, running a home and raising children, even finding a moment for yourself, whether it’s just to throw on an avocado face mask or brush your hair before the school run, can feel completely out of reach for most.

Which is what makes the cohort of women who choose to volunteer feel almost unbelievable.

We’re talking about mums who are juggling all of this and still showing up for others. Not when life slows down, not when things get easier, but right in the middle of the chaos. And the obvious question is why, but more importantly, how?

What becomes clear very quickly is that this isn’t about having spare time. It’s about something else entirely.

For Lisa Hollinshead, founder of One Another, volunteering didn’t come from a place of having capacity. It came from feeling the opposite.

Life, as she describes it, is full. She’s raising her son on her own, running her business, building a platform, and trying to stay on top of her own wellbeing, all within the same day. There’s school drop-offs, calls, writing, events, dinner, homework and bedtime, and somewhere in between, community.

But for Lisa, it doesn’t sit outside her life - it’s part of it.

What drew her in wasn’t extra time, it was the need for connection. That feeling of doing everything on your own and realising that if you want something to change, you have to create it. Volunteering became that shift.

“It wasn’t about having time,” she says. “It was about needing connection and purpose.”

That idea runs through everything she’s built. One Another isn’t about big commitments or adding more to an already full plate. It’s about small, meaningful acts that actually give something back. Energy, perspective, belonging.

And that word comes up again and again. Belonging. Because for many mums, that’s the piece that quietly disappears somewhere along the way.

Lisa is open about the fact that there are days where it all feels like too much, where the instinct is to pull back. But interestingly, those are often the moments where leaning in, even in a small way, shifts everything.

It takes you out of your own head. It reconnects you to something bigger. And perhaps most importantly, it brings you back to yourself.

For Amanda Barnes, Service Projects and Programs Director at the Rotary South Pacific Regional Council, volunteering has never been something that sat neatly on the sidelines of life, it’s been woven through it for years, long before children came into the picture.

Now, with two young kids, two businesses, and the discovery of her own neurodivergence, she’s the first to admit that from the outside it probably looks like chaos, and at times, it is.

Meetings happen around meal times and nap times. Toddlers make guest appearances in her Zoom calls. Life doesn’t pause so that volunteering can happen neatly in a separate box.

Instead, she’s built it into the reality of her days. For Amanda, the motivation is simple. It’s worth it. Through Rotary South Pacific, she’s been part of projects that have real impact, both locally and internationally. She talks about the opportunity to contribute, to learn, to grow, and to connect with people who are driven by the same desire to make a difference. But she’s also realistic about what it looks like.

“You lean out when you need to, and lean back in when you can,” she says. “This is volunteering, not work.”

There’s something refreshing in that honesty. The idea that you don’t have to do everything perfectly, you just have to show up in a way that works.

And that showing up matters.

For Mardi Barnes, volunteering has taken a slightly different shape, but the thread is the same. Finding a way to give back that fits into real life, rather than competing with it.

Mardi is a mum of three, running a social media agency and launching a second business, which means her days start early and move quickly. School runs, activities, client work, family life, it’s all happening at once.

Her volunteering with the Women’s Resilience Centre came from a simple moment of recognition. They needed someone with her skill set, and she knew she could help.

So she did.

What makes it work is that it fits into what she already does. Creating content, scheduling posts, supporting events, it’s an extension of her everyday work, not something completely separate.

And that’s the shift we’re starting to see.

Volunteering isn’t always about carving out hours you don’t have. It’s about aligning what you can offer with what’s needed, and finding a way to make it sustainable.

For Mardi, the impact has been both practical and personal. It’s the connections, the sense of contribution, the quiet feeling of being part of something meaningful outside of home life. And like the others, she’s clear that it’s not always easy. There are moments where it feels like too much, especially in the early stages, but over time, she’s found her rhythm.

What stands out across all three stories is that none of them waited for the perfect time.

Because the perfect time doesn’t exist. Instead, they made a decision to engage with the world around them, not in a way that adds pressure, but in a way that adds meaning.

And that meaning flows back. It shows up in connection, in confidence, in perspective. It gives something that daily routines often don’t. A reminder of who you are beyond the roles you hold.

There’s a narrative that volunteering is something you do later, when the kids are older, when work slows down, when life feels more manageable.

But what these women show is that it’s often most valuable right now, in the middle of it all.

Not as another thing to do, but as something that actually supports wellbeing, identity and connection.

Because in a world where so many mums are quietly carrying a lot, sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is step outside of your own life for a moment, and in doing so, find your way back into it.

And maybe that’s the real answer to how it’s possible. You don’t wait until life gets easier.

You find small ways to make it matter as it is.