Volunteering

Don't ask me how I ended up at the CityTeam Ministries Recovery Center. I am not a Christian, a homeless person, nor a person who typically volunteers, but I spent the larger part of my Saturday cutting fruit and serving the homeless.

I volunteered quite a bit in high school and college in order to help pad applications. I sometimes felt guilty, but people often reminded me that "it's okay to receive credit for good deeds."

On my way to the Center, I thought the job was going to be cathartic. I thought about how I would meet some old timer down on their luck, and they would tell me their heartbreaking story about how they ended up on the streets. I thought about how I would run out of food with hundreds of people still in line, and I sadly would need to turn people away.

But there was no catharsis. Just hard work in the kitchen. Everything was what I would expect out of the situation. Catharsis implies a certain amount of growth or unexpectedness, but today's experience was just ordinary.

I spent about two hours cutting pears, apples, and cantaloupe for the fruit salad. I never considered myself a good "fruit cutter," but after a couple of hours, I was tearin' those pears and melons up! I was a fruit cocktail machine. At at 4:45 the doors opened and my job was to put a slice of cake on the meal trays. It was a simple task.
















After the meal, we cleaned up, and I left. No certificate of appreciation. No validation of my hours. Just a handshake and a "thank you" from the coordinator.

At home now, writing this post, I feel the same as I did this morning. I don't feel like I had a life-changing experience. I don't feel like I particularly connected with anyone. I thought volunteering at a homeless center would unnerve me, but it was an emotionally pleasant day. I feel oddly unsettled, or rather, I feel unsettled that I don't feel unsettled. I feel like I should have some message or pontification—a life lesson or an experience that need be shared. But I'm the same man I was this morning. Nothing is different.

But maybe that's the point: that volunteering doesn't change you; it changes the people. Getting a letter of recommendation or counting hours for some school form is not volunteering. It is helpful, to be sure, but it is a personally driven task. Volunteering is what happened to me today—a few hours lost and leaving without a signature or a time card...or a catharsis. A task so small it wouldn't fill a line on my resume. Volunteering is when the change comes externally, not internally. It seems appropriate to confess: today was my first time truly volunteering.