A Lesson (or Rambling) In Giving Back

Last week I had the pleasure of going down to Help of Ojai's West Campus and help put together our monthly food boxes because the staff was not sure they would have enough volunteers to be efficient.  Enough volunteers showed up and I was looking forward to meeting new people, but to my surprise most of the volunteers are clients that we help.  This is not the first time I've seen a client or former client giving back whatever they can to Help of Ojai.  We have one man that does his laundry every week and while it's washing he takes out our trash and tidies up the office.  I hope this doesn't get preachy, but this giving back means so much more to me then people who just want to write a check (which is kind of ironic as I'm writing letters this week asking for money).  Donating money is great, always appreciated and I 100% understand the need for monetary donations. The service that these clients are doing means more to me though because I see their struggles on paper and what they're telling me.  It's the effort they take to care enough about others to prepare food boxes, even though they are struggling. Or to not be able to give anything because you have nothing, but looking around the office and seeing a need and quietly doing it.

These deeds are what I am trying to aim for during this year.  Whether it's participating in a community member's project or a part of my own service project, I want to be able to do it in a manner that is humble and true.  Yes, I get frustrated all the time. Yes, I have no problem using my swim coach voice to tell a certain client we are not talking about religion. Yes, I have a different certain client that I always make a sarcastic remark to about the no politics at my desk rule.  But to all of those types of "yes", there is the small victory yes.  The proud smile I give when the client takes a few deep breaths to calm herself down when medi-Cal is not understanding her problem (for the fourth day in a row).  The thank you to the neighbor that acts as a liaison to her elderly neighbor just because.  The certain client that credits Karen for him still being alive (which I whole heartily agree with!).  And the other certain client that shoots a sarcastic remark right back at me and says just give me Donald Trump's address.  Those are the moments that I hope to fill my journals up with.

The whole giving money to an organization was also brought up in a conversation I had with someone about the Adopt A Family project I am working on.  The program works by a person/group/family saying they want to adopt a family in need and buy presents for the children and donate a box of food.  In this conversation I was too busy be frustrated and distracted to listen and understand what the problem was.  They wanted to be selective in who they donated to (the children only) and wanted to give the children the presents or donate money that would be guaranteed to buy presents for children only.  After three days of frustration I realized it was the principle that I think is being reinforced in this situation and not that someone wanted to donate the money.  I would gladly take donations and shop and wrap presents for all of these families.  It would be awesome! The reinforcement that could have been there was we get to handpick who we want to help.  The possible reinforcement of we can write a check and send someone else to do the work so we don't have to see the full scope of what poverty looks like in a family.  Maybe the reinforcement that as long as I donate money, I don't have to directly think about a problem and how it can impact a person.  Even if this wasn't the message that was meant, it was the one conveyed.  It frustrates me that there could be so many teachable moments in this project for everyone in the community and we won't be able to try.

In other news, I had my first surf lesson and it was incredible.  I rode the board in twice and wiped out a lot.  I hope I get to go again so I can try to figure out how to stand up on the board.  From my research, I need to work on my core strength and balance.  This might be my metaphor for life right now: strength and balance.  Or maybe that’s just my hippy way of thinking that it's all connected.