Remember in high school when we desperately sought out volunteer opportunities in order to graduate? The first time I volunteered was a little earlier, in eighth grade. A couple of representatives from my high school’s Relay for Life had come to our school to recruit teams. At the time, I thought participating in Relay for Life was more a “cool thing to do” than contributing to a movement of raising awareness and money in support of cancer treatment. It didn’t even seem like volunteering to me. It was more along the lines of running around our small town with friends going door-to-door to ask families we pretty much grew up with for donations or decorating car wash signs and dancing around the streets. Basically, it was fun! It was bonding with my friends and meeting new people.
It wasn’t until I moved cities and schools that I realized the extent of what volunteering could do for me. My freshman year of high school was in a brand new city with over a thousand unfamiliar faces. The last time that I had been a new kid had been eight years prior as a first grader. High school was a slightly different scene than Ms. Arnone’s first grade classroom. The first couple weeks of high school were filled with people advertising clubs, trying out for sports, and throwing around all sorts of typical high school jargon (I think I’ve heard of color wars! What the heck is a block class. Is APES a movie?). In junior high, I hadn’t participated in any clubs, so high school clubs seemed daunting. It wasn’t until my friend joked around that she wanted to get into every club yearbook photo that I discovered Key Club.
If you haven’t heard of Key Club, I’m sorry, it’s not a club where you make or play around with keys. I’m sure there’s a locksmith club somewhere out there but Key Club just isn’t it. Key Club is a community service club for high schools, which branches out to Builders Club for middle schools, Circle K for colleges, and Kiwanis International for those past all of those stages. Basically, it’s everywhere.
We stumbled into the club towards the end of the year, when they were getting ready to attend this major event. Somehow, I ended up signing up to go as well. I didn’t really know what I had signed up for, but it unraveled into this crazy convention attended by over a thousand people from the entire PNW with the sole purpose of celebrating the act of giving back to the community. It was really an experience that did not allow my introverted personality.
After attending that event and bonding with the 30 other attendees from my school, I started regularly attending club meetings and signing up to volunteer for as many events as I could. I started branching out and volunteering for events outside of the club, things I enjoyed or fields that I was interested in. Bumbershoot, Nightmare at Beaverlake, Harborview Medical Center, and Salvation Army held some of my most memorable experiences. But believe me, it was incredibly difficult at first to push myself to go out and interact with strangers in new environments. For example…
I had never imagined I could act in a haunted house trail, scaring other people, when I could not watch a scary movie without hiding in a blanket half the time. Complete with blood oozing from the toothbrush protruding from my face, my villager character was a side of me not even I knew I had.
Seeing the happy families enjoy the food that we served at the Salvation Army was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever experienced. The conversations that I had with the ever-smiling children were so adorable, I don't remember ever feeling anything, but happy after.
I couldn’t believe that I had just handed a drink to Seattle artist, Sol, when I worked the VIP lounge at Bumbershoot. I began volunteering for Bumbershoot to earn a ticket to the festival, but the people, art, and environment that I worked around opened a door to a whole new culture.
My heart warmed when I spent Wednesday afternoons escorting patients from the main lobby to their appointments while working at Harborview. On some occasions, I was faced with more difficult patients who had gone through recent trauma. As uncomfortable as it was for me, those exchanges revealed people's personal sides, when they were vulnerable and going through a lot, emotionally and physically, which is not an easily attainable experience. It really teaches you a lot about daily interpersonal relationships.
As you can probably tell, my volunteer activities really didn’t have anything to do with each other. They spanned a wide range of fields and that was probably the best part about it all. I essentially got to pursue all my interests for free. I could say that I shadowed nurses at Harborview, because I essentially did; or claim that I performed live shows for several weeks in October, because I really did.
My point is that volunteering shouldn’t be something that you feel obligated to do as a school requirement or for a reward, but as something that will give you a push start to whatever you’re interested in. You know how they say traveling will teach you more than reading about culture and places will ever do? This falls on the same path. Volunteering is that first hand experience that will not only grant you the skills of whatever you’re doing, but also a unique insight to certain cultures, various new relationships, and a sense of who you are as a person. You get the privilege of working with so many people that have worked hard and gone through a lot to get where they are in life.
Learn from them, learn from the experience, and learn from yourself. You'd be surprised at all the things you get out of just giving up a little bit of your time.
