The world today is a busy place – for many of us, between work responsibilities, family resonsiblities, plus church, exercise, grocery shopping, walking the dog, and who-knows-what-else, time has become one of our most precious commidities. I therefore find it amazing that so many kind, generous (yet BUSY) people make a concerted effort to find the time to help us, and our clients. Many of them never get to meet the folks they are working so hard to help, yet they still bring their best efforts to the task. And the tasks are never particularly glamorous! They do office work, pound nails, bag food orders, sweep and mop floors, sew clothing, carry furniture, read stories, change diapers, drive vehicles, cut grass, paint walls, and so much more. They know the work they do for us matters, even if they don’t get to see the ultimate benefits firsthand.
I have asked some of them why they do it, and most will say that they know they can make a difference for hurting human beings – moms who don’t know which way to turn, kids who are vulnerable to so much potential harm, families that are barely hanging on – and that knowledge is enough for them.
For some, there are opportunities to meet some of the folks they are helping. We often hear from clients how touched they are by the kind words or gesture of compassin one of our volunteers makes, and we have seen some wonderful long-term friendships take place and flourish. For that matter, our clients often share how it lightened their heart to share a silly moment of laughter or do something purely for fun with a volunteer who has gone to the trouble of organizing a social time, dinner, etc.
I must admit that in the past it has sometimes been a challenge just to coordinate the time and efforts of the many wonderful folks who have called or emailed us with an offer to volunteer. It can be very time-consuming just to answer requests, schedule times, show someone around, answer questions, etc. With so many pressing resonsibilities on our plates around here I am afraid there have been times when someone wanted to help and we just didn’t get back to them in a timely manner. If that ever happened to you, we sincerely apologize and ask you to understand it was due to a crush of resopnsibilities, and not a lack of appreciation on our parts.
Happily I am also quite pleased to praise our two volunteer coordinators (who themselves are volunteers). Lorie Downan for some time has been faithfully maintaining a group email list of interested volunteers and “putting out the word” to them electronically whenever we had needs. More recently, Lisa Cox ( venicecoxes@yahoo.com ) stepped forward to take on duties to coordinate incoming offers of help with the needs we have, and has been doing a great job of getting back to potanetial individual and group volunteers very quickly and helping them plug into a need we have. If you are reading this and have a desire to make a real difference for people with very real needs, let Lisa know.
Like our clients, we have relied many times on the “kindness of strangers” to help us meet our needs and overcome our challenges. If you were one of those, thank you so much (and hopefully we got past the stranger phase in the process). We look forward to working with many more of you to continue to make inroads into chronic poverty and homelessness, and their devastating consequences to families in York County.
