December Volunteering

This weekend, I volunteered twice. The first was with One Brick at Holly Nights at Pennsbury Manor. This was my first One Brick event last year, and I had fun handing out hot cider to people who then went wassailing. This year, however, the split us up a bit and most of us were candle watchers. I was teamed up with someone else from One Brick and we spent about 2.5 hours walking through the kitchen house making sure people weren't too close to the candles and that the candles didn't need to be changed. (Pennsbury Manor is where William Penn lived, so there's not electricity, candles were the only way to see.) Not as good as last year, I have to say, but I still had fun.

Then, a mere 12 hours after I finished at Holly Nights, I was at St. James School for their community work day. St. James School is a private school for low income middle schoolers. They're in their second year and are opening a classroom a year. Right now they have fifth and sixth graders. It'll eventually be fifth through eighth. They had a pipe burst earlier in the week and it leaked onto their donated books that they hadn't sorted yet. So, we went through the books and threw out (I know, I was sad, too) the books that weren't salvageable. It was actually pretty quick work, so we were then tasked with sorting by what books would be good for middle schoolers. A lot of people seemed to just drop off old books of theirs, happy to get rid of them, without a thought for the audience. We had books that were for much younger children, books for adults, and encyclopedias from 1985. A word to the wise, children aren't going to be helped by books that think the USSR is a world power. I know throwing out books is hard, but no one wants those.

November Volunteering

Illness prohibited me from volunteering outside the home. I was scheduled to go to Cradles to Crayons, but I was pretty certain I was dying (or had a pretty bad head cold and could barely get through work). Luckily, I've recently taken up the task of writing One Brick Philadelphia's newsletter. So, I'm going to have to count the time I spend writing up articles and trying to get the program to work on my ancient macbook as my volunteering. You should probably sign up for One Brick Philadelphia and get my awesome newsletter. Oh, you'll also get invites to various volunteering opportunities in the Philadelphia region, blah, blah blah. Mostly the newsletter. Though you'll probably be inspired to volunteer. Because I'm such a good writer. As displayed on my blog. So you already know that.

October Volunteering

On Saturday, I went to the Philadelphia Zoo to help out with Boo at the Zoo. We (One Brick) were assigned a section with crafts and games. For the first hour and a half, I manned the "bowling" game. They had soda bottles with pebbles in the bottom and a small playground ball that looked like a jack-o-lantern. It sounded like fun, and was in the beginning. But, after each roll, I had to go get the ball and reset the "pins". I pretty much always had a line. Another volunteer came up to rescue me. I was so grateful. I then handled the eyeball and spoon run. Instead of eggs on a spoon, they had little balls that looked like eyeballs and I coached the kids in running with them. It was pretty funny to watch the really little kids. They were very concerned with not dropping it and walked so slow.

I was kind of disappointed that there were so many store-bought costumes, but I shouldn't really judge, as I was wearing a t-shirt I purchased at Target the day before.

September Wrap-up

Volunteering:
I feel like I'm cheating a bit with this, but it's all I have presently. I watched my niece. Not that I don't love baby-sitting her, nor do I usually count it, but I need something this month, and I didn't get anything else in this month. I'm currently teaching her to say "cookie" like Cookie Monster; Head Shoulders Knees and Toes in German; and This Little Light of Mine. Please note, she cannot actually do any of those, as she's basically in the phase where she copies tones, but really just says "eeeee". She tries to do the dance to Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, but doesn't really have the balance to touch her toes, so she almost falls over every time.

Mail:
Sent a baby gift to a very pregnant friend. (Totally actually counts).

Bike ride:
Did the loop to the Art Museum last weekend.

Pictures (to be posted later):
A few from my cousin's wedding, including one with my husband.

August Volunteering

I woke up early on Saturday, got my grocery shopping done, then headed to Pennypack Park in NE Philly to help with the clean-up effort there. I had toyed with canceling on Friday. I didn't feel like driving there (it was farther than I had thought when I signed up), I didn't want to skip the farmers market, I realized that between the clean-up and baby-sitting I'd be gone most of the day. But, I felt bad canceling so late because it was a Saturday morning event, and a lot of people cancel at the last minute and we're getting close to the end of the month and I needed to volunteer. Good job, blog!

I got there, was handed a trash-picky-up thingy, a trash bag, and a bucket for cans, and headed on my way. Pretty early on, I found a half-full can of PBR. Apparently, someone was unaware that people on drank PBR because it was a crappy beer and drinking crappy beer makes you cool (?). Anyway, that person just dropped the can in the park. It was pretty much the most awesome thing we found for a while, when I found a toy gun. As we ventured farther into the park, we decided to go off of the paved trail and follow a path into the woods to find where the teenagers party. Success! Another girl found a joint. We also found a lot of beer cans and beer bottles and capri suns. Interesting party.

I was surprised how many people who were using the park thanked us. Walkers, runners, cyclists. One guy on a bike stopped to ask how he could volunteer. Another guy on a bike didn't stop, but yelled as he passed us that there was a dead deer way far away from where we were. We were like "um, thanks..." I don't think a deer would fit in my trash bag, nor did I want to carry it. Or be near it. Unless it had been butchered.

We got back and found out that someone else had found part of a real rifle and another had found handcuffs. They were the winners of the day. And I'd totally do a Pennypark Park clean-up again. It was awesome.

July Volunteering

I spent my Monday night at Cook for a Friend. We made and packaged 208 chicken dinners (with veggies and apple slices) for distribution to people who cannot make dinners for themselves. I started by cleaning and trimming chicken parts, then moved on to helping package up the final product. I left hungry and smelling like chicken, but I in no way was going to eat chicken after spending 45 minutes rinsing and trimming raw chicken.

June Volunteering, Take Two

For this round, I drug my mom to a One Brick event at Books Through Bars. I loved it so much last time, that I felt the need to spread the love this time around. So, we spent three hours picking and packaging books to send to prisoners. At one point, I decided I had an idea about how to find books for someone who requested books on physiology and virology, then came to my senses and made Mom help me pick out some sweet medical books. I think I'm pretty good at finding readalikes for people who request fiction from specific authors, but medicine is not my forte. I'm looking forward to going back again.

June Volunteering

I headed back to WXPN yesterday to answer phones. For fund drives, it was a shame it was such a nice day. People weren't inside listening to their radios, but outside doing yard work or playing. I was inside, freezing, answering phones. Things really perk up with certain specials. Dan Reed, their drive guy, offered an additional 6 CDs to people who joined the CD of the month club during a certain break ($1,008 for the year). Three people joined at that level. We had a challenge going on and at the end of the hour, someone called, asked how much to make the goal to get the challenge, and gave it. Then, the last hour, we ran the $35 New Member Special. Well, that caused the phones to light up. The only time I've seen it busier was when I worked until 7pm on a Monday. At 7, the fund drive ends for the day, and during the last break to beg for money, David Dye had to walk away from his mic to answer the phone (they have two DJs on at each break, so it wasn't dead air).

May Volunteering

Philabundance is a food bank that serves southeastern PA and southern NJ. I headed there with One Brick for a morning of volunteering. First, they needed to divide us into two groups: sorting and packing meat and cleaning. I opted for cleaning, since the meat locker was cold. After we cleaned the floor, they moved us to sorting and tomatoes. Bad idea. It was pretty gross, and I'm pretty sure I never want to eat a tomato again.

Giant pile of rotten tomatoes that fell on the floor.

Looking at that picture kind of makes me nauseated. See the trash bin behind her? That's full of rotten tomatoes. We had to throw out more tomatoes than we were able to save. Then they dumped the bad tomatoes into the compost (which I was really excited about; I'm glad they find a use for as much as possible). I kind of wish I had packed meat, but people I talked to about that said they did the same thing for 3 hours, so I'm glad to have done some different things. All in all, a pretty good experience. 

The One Brick crew outside of Philabundance.

April Volunteering

I was supposed to help beautify my church this morning, then head to the community garden to help spread compost and till. So, I went to church and got assigned cleaning windows. Very exciting. I banged my elbow really hard and it still hurts, hours laster. Then, I helped set up for the Bishop's Tea tomorrow and volunteered to make scones for it. When we wrapped up there, I drove to the garden, but they appeared to get everything done in the morning (as there was no one there when I got there). So just one volunteer thing today. Unless you count the scones I'll be making after I go grocery shopping...

March Volunteering - Take Two

One Brick (see side column) had an opportunity to help set up for a fundraiser for Feel The Warmth. Nothing too exciting happened. I helped with tables, chairs, and decorations. Help set up some food towards the end. They were doing a dinner and raffle to raise some money. I did not stick around for the fundraiser itself.

March Volunteering

I can't believe it's March already. Where does the time go?

I had a really great volunteer experience today. One Brick Philly had an opportunity with Books Through Bars. Books Through Bars is an organization that provides books to prisoners. Apparently, a lot of prisons don't have libraries, and prisons that do have libraries have small collections. Books Through Bars doesn't just send prisons books, but gets letters from prisoners requesting by title, author or subject (they prefer subject, because all of their books are donated, so they're not guaranteed to have any one book in inventory).

They started us out wrapping books that had already been selected. We reread the letters and checked to see if the books were appropriate based on what they asked for and what the prison allowed. Then we wrapped the books in brown paper and way too much tape (per their request, not because that's how I wrap packages).

That's me in the front, doing something with the package I just wrapped up.

After about an hour and a half of wrapping packages, I found myself, surprisingly, ready to get away and make my own packages. When I make kid packs at Cradles to Crayons, I generally find it really stressful, because all you know about the kid is gender, age, size, and reading level. From that, you're supposed to pick out clothes, toys and books. Way too much pressure for me, since I know nothing about the kids. But, since the prisoners write their own letters, it was fun, rather than stressful, to try to find books that match their requests. And their requests were so varied. Some wanted fiction to read. Others wanted to learn a trade or improve skills. Books to prepare for GED were popular and still others wanted advanced math and physics text books. It was interesting to see what people wanted and now I know what to do with all of my husband's old text books. There's a prisoner somewhere who wants to read about foreign policy.

February Volunteering - Take 2

I am an avid listener/watching of public radio and television. One of the most exciting moments of my life was when a friend of mine asked me if I had been watching Masterpiece recently. No one had ever STARTED a discussion about a PBS show with me before. (For the record, that was about Sherlock, which aired last spring. A second season will air this spring. I highly recommend it.) Today, I decided to give back and volunteer at a phone bank for WXPN, a public radio station out of the University of Pennsylvania.

In college, I worked at Phonathon, which meant I was one of those college students who called and asked parents and alumni for donations to the school. After college, I managed a Phonathon at another school. I will say, waiting for the phone to ring was much easier than making a phone call, and 100% of the people I talked to today gave. It was awesome.

I had assumed that it would be kind of like the pledge drive rooms you see on PBS, only with the DJs up front, and everyone else behind them taking calls. No, this was set up in a conference rooms. Two DJs on one side, with their stuff set up on an old desk, then phones in a horseshoe around the rest of the room. When they break to encourage people to pledge, calls start coming in. When it goes to music it trickles and just stops until they come back to ask people to give again. I found this really interesting. I guess I had always assumed people called kind of throughout, but it picked up in the breaks, but it was almost completely silent when music was playing.

For the record, I'm going back on Monday to help out again. I probably won't post again unless something really exciting happens.

February Volunteering

Today, I went to Cradles to Crayons for their monthly Young Friends volunteering. Cradles to Crayons collects new and like new clothes, shoes, books, toys and school supplies and gives them to low income kids in the area. They have offices in Boston and Philly. Go here for more information.

This month for volunteering, they were packing kid packs and counting puzzle pieces. I find packing kid packs to be stressful because I don't know the children who are getting the packs, so I can't make informed decisions on what they want. I don't know their style, or what kinds of books they like, or what games they like to play. So, clearly, I picked counting puzzles.  (Full disclosure: I would have counted puzzle pieces anyway.) I really like puzzles and kind of wished I could do them instead of counting them. Could I have started with a 24 piece puzzle and stuck to puzzles of 100 pieces or less? Yes. Did I? Clearly not. I started with a 500, did another 500, then did some smaller ones, then 1,000. That's how I spent two hours today. And I enjoyed it. Even if I left feeling a bit cross-eyed.

Side note: if you ever want to volunteer, or have any new or gently used kids items you want to donate, let me know.

January Volunteering- Take 2

In honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, my mom and I volunteered at Valley Forge National Historic Park. We were assigned to taking down wreaths from Christmas at the National Memorial Arch. There were about 2,000 wreaths decorated the ground around the arch, commemorating the soldiers that died during the winter at Valley Forge. Nothing too exciting, but it still needed to be done. Now for a few pictures, because I finally remembered to bring my camera.

The arch with wreaths being taken down

Me, carrying wreaths from the arch (in the background behind the tree) to the dumpster

My mom, taking the stands and bows off the wreaths to save what we could for next year

January Volunteering

Today, I volunteered with We Feed the Homeless through One Brick Philly (you can check them out on meet-up here). We Feed the Homeless set up a buffet line with sandwiches, soup, chips, fruit, and drinks, and people went through getting one of each. My job was to count people we served (166). In case you were unaware, today was pretty cold for this winter, so far. They usually serve 275-300 people, so this was pretty low, which just shows how cold it is today. They stayed in the shelters rather than venturing outside.

Today made me grateful for having a warm place. After we finished, people were talking about how cold their toes and fingers were, and I just kept reminding myself that I was outside for an hour during the warmest part of the day. Some people we served will probably sleep outside tonight.