When I was working at the Holocaust museum I decided that when I grew old I’d become a volunteer like the many volunteers who worked side by side with paid staff. These people would come in regularly, and be they survivors, liberators, or what have you and do the mundane and the special jobs. Working in cultural institutions I can say that volunteers bring very valuable skills (language translation being one), professional experience and enthusiasm to the job.
There are other volunteers and times when we become volunteers in formal and informal ways. Formal as in so many non-profit, faithed-based, and community organizations just in Shaw that I don’t know where to start. Informal, as in Bry and his next door neighbor J. who occasionally clean the sidewalk and the sidewalks of other blocks. There is Alley Cleaning Man, who sweeps up the alley and leaves terse notes. There are the loose band of neighbors who decide to care for a colony of feral cats by working with organizations and feeding and providing water and shelter. There are the people who recently not only cleaned their own sidewalks of snow and ice, but their neighbors’ sidewalks.
If you look for it, you can find a lot of good in this city. And if you look for it, you can find many opportunities to do good.