Volunteer work: cause & effect

[Possegal]

I've done a lot of volunteer work. When I was pretty fresh out of grad school, I had little money but wanted to give back in some way. The county I live in has a program for people who want to volunteer but can't commit to doing something on a regular basis. So they have a lot of different things, you get the newsletter, there is a team leader, you sign up and do the one event. I ended up as a team leader and had a reputation for doing many of the events with the adult developmentally disabled, every team leader seemed to have their niche. When my mother would come visit me, she'd do events with me, I loved that. When she died, I sort of crawled in a shell for a long time, and I got out of doing that. I've done some volunteering with a singles group, figuring if I was in search of Mr Right, I may as well accomplish some good things in the process. Still no Mr Right, but I did like doing so many different projects. I've helped landscape at the National Zoo, packed meals for people living with HIV, painted a home for women who were abused, baked goodies at a home for disabled that we then took to a homeless shelter, fed the homeless, my favorite event was a monthly dance for adult disabled - that was a blast and I can still see my mother out there dancing with everyone and anyone. I then worked one night a month at the BINGO held at that center that helped fund the dances. My mother and I joked that all good Catholic girls eventually end up at BINGO.

I really should get back to that, now that I'm typing about it.

What did I get out of it? Just the feeling that I was giving back to a world that, despite how tough things have sometimes been for me, has really given me so very much. As sad as I can be about certain aspects of my life, it never hurts to remind myself that in the grand scheme of things, I've done quite well in this world and so very many others have not. My parents instilled in us kids the whole concept of "to those whom much is given, much is expected". I guess that is why I've done a lot of volunteer work.