I like to volunteer. I'm not all noble or anything, there are lots of folks who give so much more than I do. And I think I get just as much out of it as I give to others.
When I was little we'd often do volunteer type things through school or the Officer's Wives Club or something like that. And my ballet schools always took time to perform in nursing homes and hospitals close to Nutcracker or recital times. I liked when we'd get to talk to the patients afterwards. I got to run around in my leotard and dance and chat with people. Seemed like a good time to me.
I volunteered as a candy striper in an ER when I was in high school, but that was as much to learn about medicine and hospitals and see if I wanted to be a doctor. In fact, I think one of my college application essays was about the first time I saw a dead body, which happened while volunteering in the ER. I changed a lot of beds and held a lot of hands and ran a lot of x-rays around, but I got to see a lot of cool stuff too, depending on which doctors were on duty. And I got to meet interesting patients as well. I am my mother's daughter and love chatting with strangers.
My high school required all Seniors do a semester (or actually I think half a semester) of Community Service. Usually it was things like taking animals from the Humane Society to hospitals and nursing homes (I think the most popular one) and such. It was also usually during school hours, during class time. You could request projects and would tell them your interests and all, but projects were ultimately assigned. You'd get a slip saying what your project was and once a cycle you'd meet with a group to talk about it. I think it's a nice idea. Gets students in the habit of giving back and all that. I wanted the Humane Society one, but a friend of mine and I got slips saying that we would be informed of our project details upon our first meeting with our group. So we started calling it the Super Secret Community Service.
It turns out we were going to be sent to an Emergency Children's Shelter. The location of these kinds of places does need to be kept very secret so once we found out it made sense. Also, only a couple of people a semester do this project as it's a weekend one so we hadn't heard of it before. But it was such a great experience. Every Saturday we'd drive out to the house and spend the day hanging out with kids; going to the beach or the mall, hanging around the house and playing, whatever. We were just there to spend time with these kids. And it was amazing. The stuff that had happened to some of these kids would turn your stomach. And while some were very reserved and some were incredibly outgoing they were all so loving and warm. And once they got used to you they'd just shower you with affection. They really seemed to love the attention and having an almost grown-up who was just there to hang out with them and be kind to them and have fun with them. I always had a great time with those kids. And I'm sorry I wasn't able to do it for longer.
In college I volunteered at Head Start my first year, which was again just largely hanging out with kids. Sometimes I'd help with getting stuff ready or tidying up, but mostly it was playing with the kids. I would've done that longer, but then got a workstudy job at the Day Care in the same building. And, once you're paid it doesn't count as volunteering. I loved the volunteering and the job. Hanging out with kids, watching Disney movies, going on field trips; it was all my kind of thing. Though I did get peed on for one of the field trips, on a ride. I still remember one time I was having a crap day and showed up for work in a bad mood. But, a few girls and I sat in the playground watching earthworms and calling ourselves Jessica (except one girl who preferred to keep her own name). And in no time at all I was out of my cranky mood. Giggling with little girls in the sunshine makes it pretty hard to hate the world.
Once I got to New York I didn't do too much at first. But after I got settled into my job at Morgan I checked out their Foundation and volunteer program and started with their lunchtime reading program. It was a pretty simple one. You're assigned a child and then once a week you go and read with them at lunch. Totally easy and fun. Sometimes the kids are ones who could use extra help and sometimes the kids were ones who did really well in school and got a reading buddy as a perk. It was all voluntary for the kids. And it wasn't so much about tutoring them or teaching them to read. It was about them having an adult who was focused on them and only them for an hour a week. And to show them that reading was fun. My first two years I was assigned a holy terror whom I adored. He liked trying to shock me by telling me he drank beer and was going to get a motorcycle and tattoos. He was six. I told him he might want to wait a few years before making that kind of commitment to beer and bikes and skin art. He said he might wait until 18, but did offer to have one of his tattoos include my name. He also frequently tried to look up my skirt and asked me for my number so he could call me over our the summer after our first year. I said that wasn't appropriate and he should call girls closer to his own age. He thought that made sense. He wasn't a huge fan of reading but we found lots of shark and dinosaur books. And he seemed more into it when it was more interactive so we'd grab the globe and look up locations of fossils and such whenever they were mentioned in the books. I'd also bring in puzzles for him. While reading with him for two years I really got to see him learn and improve at reading and at the puzzles. But then his family moved. And I got a sweet, smart girl. Who LOVED math. Which made me so happy. We'd read for a bit, she liked mysteries a lot, and then I'd sit around making up math problems with her. I explained a bit of pre-algebra to her and she really liked figuring out x. She had a friend whose reading buddy didn't always show up so I often got two of them reading and doing math and solving crime. Not a bad two years. But then she was older and wanted to spend all of her lunches with friends instead of me. So I got my last little girl. Who was a blast. I called her Troublemaker. She liked messing with my cell phone and talking about movies and drinking chocolate milk. One night the school had a talent show and she and her friends did a dance. I want to see it after work. It was kind of spectacular. I hadn't been to a grade school talent show in a while. The Spring of our second year I was laid off. I finished up the year, but since I was no longer with the program I couldn't go another year.
Also through Morgan I'd sign up for the Holiday Gift program every year. You get a child's letter to Santa or whomever and then you go shopping. Pumpkin and I have had a blast in previous years buying things for little girls. We don't have too many kids in our lives so it's fun to shop for the small girlie stuff. And they'd always tell us this could very well be the only gift the child would receive that Holiday season so I'd go a little overboard. But, that was also through Morgan.
So, now that I'm settled in my job and have no volunteer options through work I've finally signed up for New York Cares. And I'm a total dork about it. Vader has been doing it for years and is humoring me. I did my orientation last week, but most of the projects have already been filled for the month. I guess the calendar comes out around the 21s or 22nd and people sign up for projects quickly. It's a nice system. They have lots of one-shot projects so you don't have to commit long-term if you don't want. And you can try all kinds of things. And if you have a free evening or Saturday you can see if any projects are open and sign up. Vader said that things don't fill up quite so fast after the summer is over, so that will be nice. I'm excited to try some of the kid or animal ones, and playing cards or casino nights in homes for the elderly, and maybe one of the zoo or aquarium visits. But tomorrow Vader and I are going to sort clothes for a thrift shop whose profits go to help the Homeless with AIDS/HIV. It's not too glamorous which is probably why it was one of the few things still left for tomorrow. But I'm still kind of excited. And later this month I'm signed up to play Wii at a health center in my neighborhood and a coffeehouse at a center for the blind and those with low vision. And New York Cares does the Winter Wishes gift program as well so I can get back into that again. I'm looking forward to all of that. Though, is there someone out there who can teach me to Wii?
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