Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label volunteering

How to Get It Right with Volunteers and Supporters by Playing the Volunteer Hokey Pokey

A while ago, I enthusiastically volunteered for a political candidate. I phone banked, sent letters and emails, wrote letters to the editor. . .tasks like that. Tasks I could juggle in to my life, all things considered. In my case, all things considered meant juggling my work and family life with my volunteering – and the campaign wasn’t my only pro bono cause. Work takes most of my day. My kids are very capable but still not truly independent. I have the day while they are at school, but evenings and weekends – when most volunteer events of any type I deal with, especially political, occur – I am flat out. There are kid sports, family events, house chores, family time, birthday parties and so forth every weekend. Evenings are chock full of homework, dinner, and bedtime. This is the same sort of life nearly any parent with school-aged kids leads. In addition to my own interests – such as political or health causes – there are also my family interests – such as school events, PTO,...

Just Post: Is it enough? Just Do: Is it too much?

A long time ago in blogging time (a year and a half ago) Jozet at Halushki shared with me an email she'd gotten about "everybody DRESS ALIKE on Friday to show support for the troops." I'm enough of a Cynic and a Realist to think the troops don't give a rat's rear about how we dress here. Not while checking the ground for bombs and so forth. I figured they care about (in no specific order) (a) care packages, (b) getting home alive, in one piece, and (c) doing their job to the best of their ability. So, while they might get a brief second of joy out of seeing a sea of red shirts in a photo or something, I felt pretty sure a better way to support the troops was to (a) send a care package, (b) pressure politicians to get our troops home, alive, in one piece and (c) find ways to enable them to succeed (so they could do their jobs to the best of their ability). I got so caught up in doing that I forgot to remember to definitely not wear red that Friday. I did, howe...