I am fascinated by this notion of 'meat market' volunteering groups. Can you provide me links to some? I don't live in Seattle, but I am very curious from a satirist's perspective.
Generally speaking, the more "gritty" a job is, the less meat market-y it is. I did a short bit serving food at a shelter - not a soul there was there to hook up. You walk into that place and the despair just hits you, I'm not sure if anyone would be in the mood for hitting on each other.
I don't have a link handy - the last time one came through they invited me to join, but I never even visited their website. Generally though they present themselves as "networking for young professionals" groups, though seeing them in action it's more accurately "lonely single professionals seeking love".
Not that I'm knocking it - whatever floats their boat.
I've heard this from other volunteers, though I've never experienced it for myself, but religious charities are also major meat-markets. In Seattle we have the church sandwich brigades (they drive vans of sack lunches around to the local parks filled with homeless folk) - and having seen them around a few times it's definitely very meat-market-y.
That's actually a big purpose of church. If you're Catholic, you go to church functions hoping to find a nice Catholic boy/girl to marry; if you're Mormon, you go to church functions hoping to find a nice Mormon boy/girl to marry; etc.
