Why I'm inspired to Volunteer

There are moments when you forget your wallet leaving the house. You forget the Visa card and agenda book, the tie around your neck. You forget about Saturday morning cartoons or a second cup of coffee. Perhaps it's because you are thinking about somebody else. You have set your own schedule aside for the day so that you may give of yourself.

It's time to serve; "to help a brother out." This past weekend was dedicated to community service in my northern California hometown of Pleasant Hill. However, I was surprised to find out that on my creek clean up crew I would meet volunteers from almost every bordering suburb of Pleasant Hill. I thought it was exciting enough that I might see some of my neighbors out on the streets picking up trash, painting the youth center, or collecting donations for the food bank. But I wasn't expecting people to show up to serve in a community that was not their own? Then I thought of the story of the Peace Corps volunteer. Enter a new country, often learn a new language, and open your arms to the possibility of service... or better yet getting to know a stranger. So my goal, beside getting sweaty and dirty, became to meet some new people.

I wanted to know where these people came from and why they came? Just as I'm sure many "vecinos" (neighbors) in my Dominican Republic Village of Ojo de Aguas want to know how it is this foreigner came to move into their town and now is running around every morning with a half dozen kids and a wheel barrow collecting litter.

It was not until the sweat began to pour and our mouths called for a water break that all 20 of us creek cleaners realized we had something in common. No one was being paid and no one was going to complain about getting dirty. Why? Because this was our free time and if you didn't want to be there then why were you there? No one was working off parole hours or reducing the their jail sentence. We now all identified with each other and were no longer strangers despite the fact that the only name I knew in the group for the first half hour was of the one smiling dude who had introduced himself to me as "Jim, I clean pools."

So the story emerged that an active Bible Church near my home had attracted some 60+ members to serve the nearby community and their membership came from all over the East Bay Area to attend church. So here they were on a Saturday morning, some of them a whole hour from home, helping out the city of Pleasant Hill. While we dug out invasive reeds on the side of the creek bed and de-strangled sycamore trees from voracious ivy plants, we shared interesting stories and a similar passion for outreach, or better yet a passion for sharing. The 35 year old dad Jim, the pool cleaner guy, really opened up to me as a best friend would. We tag teamed deep roots with pick axes, chased a too-groovy-to-handle Gardner Snake, and stepped a top an intensely excited hive of yellow jackets. I've since been invited over to his house for a roast beef dinner. Then there was Dakota, the shy 8th grade girl from Benicia, California who worked without ceasing and without need of any instructions. She sure knew how to swing a pick like a pro and seemed to be smiling at the same stubborn roots that would give the rest of us a cringed face. Dakota had lived her toddler years in chilling Alaska before moving to tornado ally in Tulsa, Oklahoma and eventually on to California. We interviewed each other as we help out the community.

So I made some friends and realized that I serve because there's something special in the nature of service that unites us all. There was a spirit that day at Ellinwood Creek. I guess that's why I chose to enter the Peace Corps. Their is no prerequisite to be of service to someone else. You just need to be willing. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Everybody can be great, because everyone can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve... you only need a heart full of Grace, Soul generated by Love."

Serve because you want to, because you can be great.
Peace

Jared