They Wanna Be Loved By You
If I were to tell you about my volunteer career, it might make you give up entirely on the idea of volunteering. But you and your charming self are really needed in the volunteer community.
So I feel the need to share my thoughts here, even though there are probably hundreds of other folks who do a better job. However, you might be frightened off by their inspiring stories whereas, with me, I just do a so-so job, so you can feel really good about your chances. So far, they haven’t kicked me out of any program, which says a lot about the general low hopes organizations have for free help.
Many of us deal with volunteers. Generally they come in two varieties: those who don’t show up, and those who do show up but want to take over.
There is a third variety, those who have a high tolerance for making idiots of themselves and are willing to try again and again in the face of inevitable failure which comes from a lack of skill and the accompanying lack of training.
I say inevitable because, just like a job, your success as a volunteer will go up and down. The difference here is twofold: you don’t get paid, but you seldom get fired.
Lots of volunteer experience is sort of like getting to sort all the junk mail and never really getting any letters. But somebody has to sort the junk mail.
Some of the other downfalls of volunteering are that you never have enough money, or worse, your job is to raise money, and I would rather pull the nails from my fingertips than try and raise money. You do get a chance to hone those people skills because if you can ask somebody for money, basically you can live in the woods with wolves and be happy.
Also it’s nice to be organized, and I’m not. Where I’m good is in the last minute energy department. Man, I can move when I’m terrified, and I get terrified when I was supposed to do something I forgot to do, and everybody’s showing up on time. This is where I shine. I am so into that whole what-people-think-of-me thing that I can usually get the trashcans out and the paper goods on the tables before a 6 am breakfast if I have to.
Church volunteering is a good thing, but a different thing than what I’m talking about. I know a story, probably apocryphal (meaning made-up but promoted by me as true because it suits my purposes), about a general authority who once told stake presidents at a training meeting the best thing they could do is release fifty percent of their ward workers and send them into the community.
Community volunteering makes you feel like you live in New York City because you meet lots of new people.
I’m not always particularly successful as a volunteer. One of the kids I mentored is pretty much a bust at this point. I do keep thinking one of these days she’ll wake up and say omygosh, Liz was so right, I should have gone to high school.
At other times I’ve been more successful, in spite of myself. It helps a family in need to have a friend who’s kind of normal and have that friend talk to them about all the things you have in common.
When families are struggling, it’s easy to forget that about three-fourths of everything that happens to you is normal stuff. Kids show up to school with snotty noses and no socks even when you’re paying attention to them. You get frustrated and have bad days even though your husband has a job.
I’ve also learned that meth addicts have very clean houses because they are busy, busy, busy. That’s been a relief to know. Yet another plus for Miss Piggy here. The Safety Net Mentoring program could really use some help and it’s fun. The United Way website has a plethora of jobs. One time I saw an ad for someone to clean out horse barns for a riding program for handicapped kids, which maybe if you grew up on a farm doesn’t sound too great, but if you’re a city kid who collects those plastic Breyer horses, it might be cool. You can get free training for anything. Call United Way for ideas.
So I feel the need to share my thoughts here, even though there are probably hundreds of other folks who do a better job. However, you might be frightened off by their inspiring stories whereas, with me, I just do a so-so job, so you can feel really good about your chances. So far, they haven’t kicked me out of any program, which says a lot about the general low hopes organizations have for free help.
Many of us deal with volunteers. Generally they come in two varieties: those who don’t show up, and those who do show up but want to take over.
There is a third variety, those who have a high tolerance for making idiots of themselves and are willing to try again and again in the face of inevitable failure which comes from a lack of skill and the accompanying lack of training.
I say inevitable because, just like a job, your success as a volunteer will go up and down. The difference here is twofold: you don’t get paid, but you seldom get fired.
Lots of volunteer experience is sort of like getting to sort all the junk mail and never really getting any letters. But somebody has to sort the junk mail.
Some of the other downfalls of volunteering are that you never have enough money, or worse, your job is to raise money, and I would rather pull the nails from my fingertips than try and raise money. You do get a chance to hone those people skills because if you can ask somebody for money, basically you can live in the woods with wolves and be happy.
Also it’s nice to be organized, and I’m not. Where I’m good is in the last minute energy department. Man, I can move when I’m terrified, and I get terrified when I was supposed to do something I forgot to do, and everybody’s showing up on time. This is where I shine. I am so into that whole what-people-think-of-me thing that I can usually get the trashcans out and the paper goods on the tables before a 6 am breakfast if I have to.
Church volunteering is a good thing, but a different thing than what I’m talking about. I know a story, probably apocryphal (meaning made-up but promoted by me as true because it suits my purposes), about a general authority who once told stake presidents at a training meeting the best thing they could do is release fifty percent of their ward workers and send them into the community.
Community volunteering makes you feel like you live in New York City because you meet lots of new people.
I’m not always particularly successful as a volunteer. One of the kids I mentored is pretty much a bust at this point. I do keep thinking one of these days she’ll wake up and say omygosh, Liz was so right, I should have gone to high school.
At other times I’ve been more successful, in spite of myself. It helps a family in need to have a friend who’s kind of normal and have that friend talk to them about all the things you have in common.
When families are struggling, it’s easy to forget that about three-fourths of everything that happens to you is normal stuff. Kids show up to school with snotty noses and no socks even when you’re paying attention to them. You get frustrated and have bad days even though your husband has a job.
I’ve also learned that meth addicts have very clean houses because they are busy, busy, busy. That’s been a relief to know. Yet another plus for Miss Piggy here. The Safety Net Mentoring program could really use some help and it’s fun. The United Way website has a plethora of jobs. One time I saw an ad for someone to clean out horse barns for a riding program for handicapped kids, which maybe if you grew up on a farm doesn’t sound too great, but if you’re a city kid who collects those plastic Breyer horses, it might be cool. You can get free training for anything. Call United Way for ideas.
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