nobody can be uncheered with a balloon

I’ve just come across this infographic on the eternally-fantastic good.is webzine.

I’ve pasted it above to give you an idea, but I highly recommend you click through to the interactive version.

The purpose of all the little people standing in their serried ranks like that is to demonstrate visually the number of Americans who took part in volunteer work last year. Some of the individual trends are rather piquant, such as the most popular voluntary activity among 45 – 54 year olds being that of a religious nature, and the fact that in every age group, women consistenly  out-volunteer men.

But overall, this is a happy story. In 2009, while in the grip of a recession, around a quarter of Americans of all ages chose to give up their time for free to do something for others. I hope it wasn’t just because some of them were unemployed.