Volunteering

In one of my books, there's something called a Volunteer Year. Technically, in this book, children become adults at the age of seventeen and are expected to graduate at this age. However, it is kind of an unwritten rule that their parents will maintain financial responsibility for them until the age of eighteen. This allows the new adult to enter into a year of volunteer work rendered across as many interests as they feel comfortable with maintaining. After spending this year discovering what they are passionate about, they either proceed into advanced education or they enter the work force. Basically, what we know of as a "gap year" with conditions.

I cannot tell you how much I wish this was a real thing. Or the amount of healthy development, experience, and personal responsibility it would create for young people. But I digress.

The point of this post is honestly to encourage more people to volunteer in your community. Why? Because we desperately need more volunteers in my community and it's half the stress on my brain currently.

Story-ish Time:

A few years ago, I started getting more involved with my community by challenging businesses to a decorating contest for Halloween. I started other competitions and made guessing jars and the whole bit. Then, a year later, word got around town that the Beautification Committee was about to lose its leaders who were too advanced in age and too disadvantaged in health to keep going. They were retiring and they needed people to step up.

Mind you, our beautification crew had been running for decades under the leadership and planning of these two people. (There were others over the years, of course, but Bob and Emily were the longest existing participants.) Well, after my self-realization that I, as a member of a younger generation, had a duty to be more involved, I chose to volunteer to help plant flowers. Shortly after this, a meeting was called and I was asked to help bring awareness to it and gathered a decent group for Emily and Bob's handover, basically. Unlike in the past, where it was mostly those two making all of the decisions, we voted in a full board. My MIL became the president, we picked out people for the clerk, treasurer, and deputy-treasurer positions and off we went. As things happen in small towns, people often feel like they take on too much or they simply learn to dislike the people they were expected to join forces with. Either way, we lost our clerk after a few months as well as several other people meant to be active participants. I was then voted into that position by virtue of being the only person willing to take on any responsibility for this group.

This is where we started to realize just how bad this was going to get. Despite keeping several people informed, very, very few of us were actually willing to do what needed to be done. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I didn't weed or water any flower beds once I helped to plant them. However, I was there for almost every act of decorating the beautification performed, and I was the principal photographer and social media manager for most of our endeavors. My MIL was the driving force behind getting us people (mostly her family and employees) to actually put up and take down decorations. We rely heavily on The Lion's Club for storing decorations as well as aiding us in putting up and taking down. It really is a town effort, but only a tiny portion of the town shows up, which is really sad to me. Especially when you consider the age and physical limitations of those that do turn up.

Even more stressful was our desire to be granted 501(c)(3) status designating us as a nonprofit which could accept significant financial contributions such as donations and grants. Somehow it fell to me, instead of the treasurer, to file this application. I stressed for months about the documents we needed and what those documents had to say, because I was expecting to have to send a PDF to the IRS to show we were compliant. For months I stressed over the wording before finally caving in and buying it from one of those legal document websites. All for the stupid application not to even need it in the first place. Needless to say, I was irked.

Again, the point of all of this woe-is-me is a) my desire to bitch about it and this being my forum to do so and b) to push people to look around their own communities and find out where they can lend a helping hand. Are you close to an animal shelter? Well, they constantly need laundry done, doggos need walkies and basic training, and kitties need laps to invade. Or what about your own town beautification? Who do you think puts the banners up on the light poles every season? Weeds the flower boxes? Puts up all the scarecrows and light displays? All of that takes work, and we can't rely on the older generations to do it all anymore. Hell, even something as simple as going to your nearest nursing home and talking to the people there is precious time well spent.

Whether it's one hour a day or two hours a week, any time you can donate to a good cause is priceless to those you are assisting. I hope you all find a little bit of time to volunteer this month. And know that there's always someone close to home that's looking for just the right set of helping hands.