Volunteering

I’m sitting here at the security desk on the last Friday of the school year 2004 typing on my iBook. It’s my job to make sure those who enter this building are not only who they say they are but have good reason to be here. This is a volunteer position and one of several hats I wear as a contributor to the common good of Rock Springs Elementary School. It is also my next to last year to be a member of the huge volunteer force, comprised of parents and grandparents, who give countless hours to the process of assisting the staff to make this school run like a well-greased machine. I fall into the latter group (grandparent) and I graduate next year as my granddaughter moves on to middle school.

I can tell already that it’s going to be a bittersweet experience for me to bid farewell next year. I fully expect I’ll be weepy for most of the month of May 2005. For one thing, it will mean the obvious that Olivia is growing up and I am growing older. But for another, it might possibly be the end of my elementary school volunteering, one I have cherished off and on since 1972. The aging tired part of me is ready to move on and let the younger mothers take up the task, and the fun loving part of me rails against giving up the pleasure and self-satisfaction.

I started volunteering as a young mother of three before the term “stayathomemom” (yes, that’s one word) was coined. Volunteering seemed the best way to channel all of my energy and creativity, finding a better use for my intelligence than watching soaps all day, and still be available to the kids when they were home from school. Between PTA, Camp Fire and Boy Scouts, some years I was spread pretty thin, often attending as many as a dozen meetings a month plus all the time spent planning and executing committee work. I didn’t realize it at the time, while I was fully immersed in the daily routine, but all that practice of organizational skills looked great on my resume when it was time for me to step back into the paid work force as my kids moved into their adult lives. This is a side benefit of volunteering that one doesn’t consider when signing up to work long hours for free, however.

There are many others, perhaps, if not certainly, more important.

First and foremost, time freely given is rewarded two-fold, by a profound sense of accomplishment and profuse appreciation from those on the receiving end. The single most eye-opening truth I experienced, once I reentered the corporate world, was that whereas your best is always good enough while in a volunteer capacity it isn’t always thus in the work place when a paycheck sums up your worth. The person issuing the check may have a completely different perspective on what you should be able to accomplish in a given period of time. Unfortunately, this might not agree with your point of view, limitations or enthusiasm. The subtle dynamic underneath it all is that those who volunteer nearly always do so because they want to, not because they have to which isn’t always true with a paying job. The human psyche is complex, thus it often happens that volunteers give better than their best because the drive to feel worthwhile for effort expended is always rewarded with something more esthetic and less definable than cold hard cash. In fact, the value of volunteering cannot effectively be compared to work done for hire. It’s bananas and mangos.

The list of places that need and welcome volunteers would fill a large volume and the need grows annually. Every year schools and youth groups scramble to fill positions of leadership with willing manpower. Mores the pity, civic and local organizations that reach out to the ever increasing needs of community find themselves depending on fewer and fewer members. This is a mystery to me, and a crying shame, because I know from first hand experience that volunteering opens doors and provides immeasurable good for not only the organization but also for the one volunteering. It's win/win. The years I clocked in and collected my pay-checks were pretty much their own reward. The years I have spent making things better or easier for those who are making things better for others will continue to reward me for the remainder of my life.
If you ever wake up and wonder what to do with spare time, try volunteering.

It will make you rich.
I promise.