Padme: ”Ani? My goodness, you’ve grown.”
Anakin: ”So have you, grown more beautiful… for a senator, I mean.”
Padme: ”Ani, you’ll always be that little boy I knew on Tatooine.”
Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
Today, Padawan Learner signed up to be a volunteer at our local nature center as part of their Youth Volunteer Group, which is run at the same time as their homeschooling classes for younger children. When I told him about it, he was interested but wanted to know more about what he would be doing. While it would have been easy for me to send out a quick email, I knew that it would mean more for him to find out for himself.
So I drove us out to the nature center after lunch today. Once we got there, he went about asking for the homeschooling program director and getting the information he wanted. It was, well, just so nice seeing him take charge of making this decision. He listened to what she said, asked a few questions, and decided to sign on to volunteer once a month.
I couldn’t be prouder.
“Hello. I am C-3PO, human cyborg relations. How might I serve you?” - C-3PO, Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace
Serve: to render assistance; to be of use; to help.
Tuesday was one of those bright, dry, sunny fall days that we all imagine when we hear the word Autumn. It was cool, but not cold, and a long-sleeve shirt and jeans would have been perfect after about ten minutes of activity. I was planning to rake up the leaves from the front and back yards and clean out the annuals from the flower bed. The city had finally come and chipped up the stump from the tree they cut down last spring, so that area could use some smoothing out.
But then something better happened. I was given the chance to serve a friend. It feels so nice to help someone out when they really need it. Perhaps we’ve collectively forgotten just how good it makes us feel to know that we’ve been useful to someone else. How luscious it is to forget our own needs, wants and plans for a few hours and focus on someone else. Maybe that’s why we, as a nation, don’t volunteer as much as we used to.
Padawan Learner and I have had two different long-term volunteering commitments over the years. The first was reading to a class of second-graders at the elementary school that my neighbor used to teach at. Those kids loved to listen to him read to them. He would choose what he wanted to bring from home, planned where to stop to ask questions from the class, and tried to find things that were a little out of the ordinary. His biggest hit was when he brought a book of poetry. While PL read to the class, I hung out in the school library and tutored a little boy who was behind in reading. The second place was a local cat shelter. We were there for a couple of years, but fell out of the habit late this summer. Although there were some unpleasant things that went along with that activity (cleaning out 25 litter pans, for instance), it was fun to have 80 to 100 cats purring, playing with balls, and jumping for string. We got to know several of the “lifer’s” and were always torn between happy and sad to see our favorites get adopted out.
It is time, I think, for us to find another long-term volunteering opportunity. Do you volunteer in your community? If so, what do you do and what keeps you doing it?
