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Yesterday I had the honor of attending the ribbon cutting for an apartment building. A nonprofit organization was able to purchase a vacant, foreclosed property in a neighborhood suffering from blight and renovate the building to provide homes for four families experiencing homelessness. Not only was this small apartment building going to help the four families, it could also begin to improve conditions on the street and eventually turn things around for the whole neighborhood. One of [...] Last week I spoke with elementary school students about homelessness. Every class I visit is always attentive for their “special guest” and our conversations can be an insightful treat. One second grade boy stopped me in my tracks when he asked “What would happen if there were no volunteers?” I find myself returning to his question every day. When I first answered him, I spoke about the concrete tasks which occur each day. We wouldn’t have [...] A friend from high school said he never drives past a volunteer community car wash without thinking about my dad. My dad owned a gas station and he was always letting scouts and schools have car washes. My friend marveled at all the gallons of water he donated. I’d never thought about it. In fact, I’d forgotten all about the car washes. A couple of years ago, I was chatting with a friend and recalled the name [...] As I was sitting at a picnic for one of my son’s activities, a leader stood up and proceeded to describe all the volunteer duties for parents. “O boy,” I thought, “This is entirely my fault.” After leading a youth organization for a few years, I decided to tell parents to commit to a volunteer job on an index card and hand it to me along with their membership payment. One night in a parking lot [...] As I began to start a new community website, I caught myself thinking I’d need to jettison real life commitments in order to maintain it. Then it hit me, I was actually thinking about quitting my volunteer work with other people to sit at my laptop. In the last week I’d volunteered at our elementary school festival and field day then participated in a cub scout service project. Between my family, work, church and a city [...] “I know this is going to sound dumb, but I’m really going to miss all the emails, editing, and back-and-forth of working with you the last few weeks.” Wow! I didn’t know what to say to this volunteer. We had just sat down to celebrate the success of my organization’s annual fundraiser, but these simple words meant so much more to me than the event. He had lugged all his professional video equipment to three different [...] This morning I was waiting for our PTA President to finish talking with the mother who is chairing a school activity. I would step outside then back in again while waiting to wave to my son’s class before school started. So I overheard parts of the conversation and was REALLY glad I wasn’t having it! The PTA President is a warm and caring woman who I consider a friend. She grew up in Puerto Rico and [...] |
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Copyright © 2012 Trying not to BNeg - All Rights Reserved |
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