Community Affairs

When I was working full tilt I didn't have time to be a thoughtful board member of community organizations. Yes, I did a few, but the meetings happened when I had already put in nine or more hours of work as a teacher/director of our school. I left the hard work to 'others' who were retired or didn't work at a 'real' job. I didn't really pay attention to the financial spread sheets and I let it slide onto others (the elderly and retired!) to attend to the nuts and bolts of whichever non-profit I was supposed to be helping.
As a very young person working in an art museum and in charge of docents, I spurned those well-meaning community volunteers as people who could not be counted upon. They came in on uncertain schedules, and I, working for pay, could not understand where they were coming from. I dismissed them as ladies in white gloves with money, Junior Leaguers, and men who didn't have anything else to do.
And now, I am them! I don't belong to the Junior League, my fingernails are gritty with Florida sand, but now is the time when I am a comitted volunteer. I have been so arrogant! Our American life counts upon the legions of volunteers in all aspects of our culture! I think about the people who build homes for low income people, the folks who are still working in the New Orleans area to restore a liveable life, the people who go to foreign lands because they believe that people should be free of AIDS, or malaria or cleft palates.
I am a believer in giving people tools to help themselves. It was important to me to construct a school program to fund a Heifer International project.
So now I am excited to be a community volunteer. I work one day a week in a local public school ( one of the poorest in the nation and state). I am an activist on several community boards. I believe that one needs to give back to the world. The people who do this are the ones who make our country what it tries to be. It may sound naive, but I think that to do this is to be a good American.