Just watched a neat little movie called Cencoroll. It's nice and weird and kinda sad and short. Apparently it was created and animated by a single guy who also wrote the manga for it. The music is by supercell.
So if you want to have a look at what makes anime so great and have like 30 minutes have a look at it.
If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.