Philanthropy and Volunteerism

Here are Lily and Deshawn planting some of the new seedlings we have for our fall school garden. Another child is getting water for her newly planted starts. When the beds were planted they looked so promising, and now, a couple of weeks later, and many inches of rain later, they are up and perky.

This group of kids, almost twenty of them, come to the 'Garden Ladies' two days a week after school. We are planting and caring for this school garden, cooking and eating the harvest, learning about nutrition and botany and each other.

At least, this was our vision! The photo you don't see is the one when we made popcorn and constructed lovely bean artworks. Total chaos! The kids glued their multicolored beans onto paper plates in less than five minutes. No one had listened to the instructions and they poured on the glue and scattered the beans over it. Done! They looked like preschool creations. No matter. On to the popcorn with so much grabbing and screaming and pushing. No child wondered why popcorn pops. Many of the kids sat at the tables and screamed for us to bring cheese and butter, more popcorn. No child helped in the massive clean-up.

Regroup. Several of us, all retirees and volunteers from our local garden club, have committed for this project. Most of us have teaching experience and we feel responsible to bring good food, nutrition know how and expertise to this very poverty stricken community. The kids are far behind the ordinary middle class kids I have taught for thirty-five years. These are hungry for food and attention and they have no idea how to behave or listen or focus or tend to their own needs or those of the community in which they find themselves. The idea of cleaning up their spaces is unknown to them.  It seems there is no room in their desperate world for curiosity and wonder. And the child world of today, even among the less fortunate, is quite different than it was.

So we garden ladies are addressing these issues. Yes! The garden will be spectacular, and when the harvest is coming in, those kids will have some tools of competence and cooperation. No more chaos, just conversation about the tasks at hand.

It is way easier to just press the Donate Now button to give to one's causes. It's harder to be out there on the line doing community clean up projects, hosting a community coffee shop, constructing a garden, reading to kids in a classroom, working on a food line and in a food bank. It's harder to make  commitment to deliver meals on wheels.

But everything philanthropic is part of making the world better. The Gates Foundation, Doctors without Borders, Heifer, and so many other megabuck outfits are out to change our world for the better. But, drop by drop, those of us who are "there" in our communities make a difference.