More on Volunteering

My hubbie and I volunteer through our church with a variety of ministries. We have worked with our Food Pantry, which served over 3,500 meals last quarter alone in our small community. We both belong to a group that works on small home projects for folks who are unable to do these things for themselves. The biggest venture for us so far, though has been the culmination of our church’s year long planning for the one-week workcamp, which is done with our co-sponsor through the Group Workcamps Foundation. They describe their mission on their website:

How does a community respond to a tragic flood? In 1977, Loveland, Colorado responded by hosting the very first Home Repair Workcamp and the Group Workcamps Foundation began repairing homes – and in the process helped people in mending their lives.

At each Workcamp, hundreds of teenagers and adult sponsors come to a community like yours for a full week, and spend five days repairing homes for elderly, low-income, and disabled residents.

The preparation for the workcamp is monumental. Our steering committee requests applications from qualified area residents who are in need of work, selects the homes, determine the equipment and material needs, and ultimately welcomes 350 teen volunteers and their youth group leaders, who hail this year from states including Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine and New Hampshire. The vans roll in on Sunday, and out pour hundreds of kids, who bring with them loads of joy, excitement and an abundance of an attitude of service. They pay to come to camp. Yes, let me say that again: they pay to come to camp, to scrape and paint homes in the heat and humidity, to repair porches, steps and railings, to sleep in sleeping bags in classrooms on the floor of our middle school, to connect with the residents, and especially for the opportunity to serve, grow in their faith, and to show God’s love in a practical way. Cool beans, as one of my friends says.

Scraping wallpaper to prep for paint

Marking the loaned ladders

Here are some estimated numbers from this week, as we begin our Workcamp:

Towns served: About 13

Homes readied: About 50

Ladders loaned: Over 100

Volunteers arriving: 350

Goodie bags created: 360

Lunches prepped: Over 1,400

Meals made: Over 3,300

Hours worked: Over 9,000

Miles traveled: Thousands. Filled with many songs, bad jokes, much merriment, lots of junk food and very little sleep

What do they all add up to? Relationships forged. Paradigms shifted. Lives transformed. Really great stuff.

As I noted in my previous post about volunteering, I encourage you again to find a cause, a need in your community, even something so simple as an elderly neighbor who needs help bringing the groceries in from the car. I can't say it any better than Nike: Just do it.

A sampling of the goodie bag treats

Go ahead and volunteer!

In these difficult economic times, it can be so easy to feel sorry for yourself. The threat of unemployment, the discouragement of not being able to find a job, the increasing gulf between your wages and your bills, or a general concern regarding how much more belt-tightening you can do can take a toll on your good humor and overall state of mind. Sometimes, as I have noted previously, you need to take a breather and find a different perspective. I think Booker T. Washington-a man who was born into slavery in 1856 and yet became the founder of Tuskegee Institute after the Civil War-said it best:

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

There is a lot of wisdom in those words. If you have ever volunteered, really done something for a cause because you believed it was the right thing to do, you know how amazingly good you feel about it. Not because it was necessarily easy, comfortable or convenient, because odds are, it wasn’t, but because you walked away knowing you helped. Yes, it’s corny, but it is so very true.

You can volunteer time, money, and even goods you no longer need. For instance, we recently donated our dog kennel fencing to Puppy Angels, an organization that does animal rescue and adoption. During the pickup of the fence, we met Dora, a young Pitbull. She was lithe and bright and energetic, she is the dog you see here with her pal Kelly, and Dora is available for adoption.

How are you feeling these days? Stressed? Down in the dumps? Feeling sorry for yourself? My prescription for you would be to get out and volunteer. You can find opportunities everywhere: your community, your church, your neighborhood, and you can do it once, or on a continuing basis. Reach out and help someone today. You really will be glad you did.