About a year ago, I decided to give back to my community. I have always given money to various charities and non-profit organizations. It is so easy to just write a check and never have to face the people that are less fortunate. I started volunteering with a group called Boobs4Food. They set up monthly events that is focused on fighting hunger and food related issues.
This was my first experience at Glide Memorial Church. This is the first time that I will actually see the people that these organizations serve. The past events have been various food banks. It is work that needs to be done, but it humbling experience to see the people. You see people from all walks of life. There were plenty of homeless people, but there were also people that were just like any of us. They just don’t have enough for a warm meal.
After the event, all the volunteers met for a nice meal. I do not feel guilty about having a nice meal after see what people will do for simple food. I do not volunteer to make myself feel better about myself. I appreciate what I have and I try to not take that for granted, but it does give me perspective. I should try and enjoy life and enjoy what I have. I am lucky to have the luxuries in life. I am fortunate enough to have great friends and the means to enjoy it. I had just as much fun volunteering with great people as I did sharing a few drinks and delicious food with them after the event.
Thank you everyone for making my Saturday such an amazing day.
I signed up for my second volunteering event. I thought this one would be more fun than the last one. I also picked this one, because it was for RAFT (Resource Area for Teaching). My sister and my brother are both teachers. I know first hand how difficult it is for them and how under funded they are.
RAFT makes different packages for teaching from various donated materials. One of the project I was working on today was to convert hanging file folders into something useful. We would cut off the hangers off the folders. Those are to be used later for a cover over some papers for a notebook. The metal is save to make mobiles. Nothing is wasted. I found some interesting stuff left behind on those folders. I found some pictures negatives that someone forgot to take out. One of the girl found a flirty post-it note one of them.
I woke up at 6 AM to walk my dog. I needed to get to Daly City by 8 AM to meet at the build site. This was my first time doing a playground build with Kaboom. I was there by myself and I signed up with One Brick to help Kaboom with the build. Since I didn’t know anyone there, it was an interesting experience. I’ve always talked about doing more charity work. I don’t even wake up or go to work that early. I can’t believe I did this on a Saturday and it wasn’t even to go to Tahoe.
It seems like everyone knew each other and it was a bit of a challenge to break into the cliques that are already established. I thought people would be friendlier since we were all there with a common goal. We got broken up into random groups based on our stickers. I got put in the group that had to move the mulch from the parking lot up to the playground area. I grabbed a wheel barrel and and started pushing. We were the first group to finish.
After lunch, we still had to wait for the group to assemble the playground and pour the concrete. I ended up talking to some of the Park & Rec maintenance worker. One of the guy was pretty friendly. I asked him what he thought of the whole project. I got an entirely different perspective on the project.
He and his coworkers has been putting in 3 weeks worth of prep work so that everyone can show up for the day and take credit for it all. He also thought that there was nothing wrong with the old playground. They took out the old tire swing and put in a brand new swing set. He said that the kids really like that old tire swing. I remember playing on those old playgrounds in the parks when I was growing up.
Another lady didn’t seem like she really cared about doing things right. It felt like she just wanted it to look good for the day while she is there. We were spreading the mulch around. I was pulling the mulch away from the concrete border because it was supposed to sit 4 inches below. The crazy lady kept shoving it back. I told her that it needed to be 4 inches below or else it will all fly off and we don’t have enough material for it to sit that high up. Her respond was, “we didn’t paint the border so we need to cover it so it would look nice”. The maintenance and I just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders.
The other part seems pretty nice. We also repainted the restroom and painted a mural on one of the wall. We also build an amphitheater and stage. I didn’t actually stay until everything was completed. After lunch, there were a lot of people just standing around and not really doing anything. There seems to be way more people than needed. I got tired of standing around in the sun and not really doing anything. I guess it was time for me to go home. I was told that there would be socializing after the project was completed. From what I saw, it would have more of the same cliques socializing with themselves again. I definitely want to come back later and see how the completed project turned out.
