Usehttp://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/complete and study until you are proficient in Kana. After that dive straight into Kanji and vocab. Use spaced repetition flash cards like Anki or if you have some money to spend you can use www.wanikani.com. It's $100 for a year but they're well worth it.
To get better at Kana and Kanji read everything Japanese you come across.
But be prepared, it is not easy nor fast. If someone claims that he's lying. It takes a lot of effort and dedication.
I don't understand why people say that JKanji is the hardest part, it's just simple memorization. The actual hard part is listening comprehension. Reading a text is easy, listenting to the same text without Kanji helping you is much much harder.
If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.
