My Experience with Nonprofits
My first major volunteer experience happened when I was in eighth grade. In 1998, my church youth group spent an afternoon serving food at a pantry in one of the “scarier” parts of Wichita. I mostly felt out of place. I couldn’t speak Spanish and I felt uncomfortable and scared. My youth pastor at the time really wanted us to “share the word of the Lord” with the people we were serving, but I just wanted to serve the food and leave. I felt terrible that they were so dirty and hungry. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to them about Jesus. The experience certainly shaped how I would approach volunteering with nonprofits in the years to come.
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The same youth group took a trip to Mexico for three weeks in 1999 to work at an orphanage and help build up a camp to house orphanage volunteers. We woke up every morning before the sun, worked until breakfast, ate, worked until lunch, ate and then it was time for rest. The work was hard. We were in the sun building gardens, painting buildings, and constructing gazebos. The evenings were spent at the orphanage, playing with the children. It was such a better fit for me. I felt more in control of the situation. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t speak Spanish because the children just wanted to play and laugh. I didn’t worry so much about “sharing the word” as living it. I found I could be much more effective towards my personal purpose of being there. Other people might have gone to talk about Jesus, but I was there to bring joy to an orphaned child. It was much more rewarding for me.
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I grew up in that youth group in more ways than one. We spent a week at a summer camp in 2002 called Camp Barnabas. I spent 23 hours a day for 7 days working one-on-one with a mentally disabled girl named Annie. She had the body of 13 but a mind of 4. She was taller than me, bigger than me, louder than me, and I was very much overwhelmed by the task at hand. It was my job to be her best friend all week. I hadn’t spent any time with any mentally disabled people, and I wasn’t sure how to react or what to do. Mostly I just followed Annie around, doing whatever she wanted to do. I’m not sure how helpful I was to her. Some people really enjoyed the experience, but I had a really hard time. It was an awful lot of responsibility mixed with an expectation from my “lead counselor” to “share the word of the Lord” with Annie. I didn’t like that part of it. I wanted it to be like the orphanage in Mexico where we just played and laughed together, but I was expected to be a spiritual guide for Annie as well as a friend. I was struggling with my own personal spiritual journey (and I still am) so I found myself having a hard time trying to explain faith and “God’s Plan” to Annie. Here was I – healthy, “normal”, sheltered, and I couldn’t help but see our differences, and I couldn’t understand what it must be like. I felt guilty.
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After graduating high school in 2003, my volunteer experience became much less church-based. I spent an evening at Spay and Neuter Kansas City, walking dogs and petting cats. I spent an afternoon at a PetSmart with the Humane Society, answering questions for prospective pet-owners about adopting the dog on the end of my leash. I served dinner at a Catholic Worker House during my RCIA class. I pulled invasive species from a forest in south Kansas City through Bridging the Gap. These were all random, one-time events that I felt good about. I wanted more.
After graduating college in 2007, I accepted an unpaid internship at a publishing company writing and designing press releases for soon-to-be-released titles. I took a part-time job as a bank teller to pay the bills while I finished the internship. I was certainly going to get a job…or so I thought. My internship came and went, and the bank stayed. I transferred departments and after a year and a half at the low end of the corporate totem pole with no prospect of moving up, I decided it was time for a change. I wasn’t happy at all. I was in a relationship that was going nowhere, doing a job I despised for a company I wasn’t proud of. The only things that gave me joy were my comedy improv troupe and my random acts of volunteerism.
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Through chance or destiny or fate or “God’s Plan” or what-have-you, I started to have a conversation with a student at Rockhurst who mentioned the American Humanics program and getting certified in nonprofit leadership. She might as well have set me on fire. Within days I had completed my application and met with an advisor. I signed up to take courses beginning in fall 2009. One of our service projects included a trip to Harvesters, where I met an AmeriCorps member named Bailey. She mentioned how she had graduated college without a job, and AmeriCorps provided a living stipend while she spent a year of volunteer service working at Harvesters. It sounded like a dream come true. I applied for an open AmeriCorps position at Harvesters and started my term in October 2009. Since joining, I’ve helped coordinate hundreds of food drives that bring in hundreds of thousands of pounds of food and household products to feed and care for the less fortunate in Kansas City. I have never felt more rewarded. I make next to nothing but I have more now than I ever did working for the bank, or doing “faith-driven” volunteering.
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I have never been more inspired to try to change things around me. I feel empowered as a member of a society with a democratic government. It’s easy to sit back and think that one voice or one vote doesn’t matter, but that’s exactly the line of thought that keeps things the same instead of changing for the better. I have gone through a complete transformation from lost and nervous post-college twenty-something to a confident and driven grown-up with a plan. I want to work with the type of organization that is there to help in the most effective way.
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My previous volunteer experience was very heavy when it came to “religious stuff”; that definitely had an influence on how I feel now about particularly “Christian” organizations. I cannot deny the importance of these organizations but I am less likely to get excited about working for one that exercises a religious arm while serving the less fortunate members of society. It is my personal belief that organizations offering food, clothing, and shelter should do so without the Jesus conversation. Living it is more important than talking about it all the time, or making it some sort of “necessary exchange” for services. This is not to say I am opposed to all religiously affiliated nonprofits. That is certainly not the case. I simply think it provides an unnecessary challenge to fulfilling a mission.
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That being said, there are definite challenges to fulfilling any nonprofit’s mission to the liking of everyone in the community. In the few months at Harvesters, I’ve fielded some pretty angry calls about various topics from the lack of barrels (because they were all being used in food drives) to pick-up dates (our transportation schedule was full through the holidays) to anger over the deer being shot in Shawnee to Harvesters “charging for food”. What I’ve found is that people have an overwhelming desire to help and give, and often times it takes over any logical thinking associated as such. People tend to forget that there are processes in place. Food must be weighed. Numbers must be entered. Accounts must be kept. Reports, paperwork, and documentation all must be in line. Cleanliness, food safety regulations, and city ordinances must be up-to-date and enforced. It is so much more than putting the can into the barrel. It takes a lot of work to feed 60,000 people a week, but it gets done. It gets done because the community has taken on the challenge and provided. Volunteers, donors, employees, schools, and community leaders all support Harvesters. The good being done outweighs the negativity stemming from more of a lack of understanding rather than an actual anger.
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If anything, at the end of my life, I want to look back and know that I made a positive change in my community through both my personal and professional life. I want to work for an organization that is there to provide and serve. Organizations that educate, enable, and empower the general public to make a change for the better – whether it’s learning to read, planting a garden, cooking a meal, eliminating debt, gaining experience, learning an instrument, playing a sport, and yes, providing spiritual counseling – are an inspiration. I am lucky to be in a position where I am able to give my time and learn. I have never been so happy and it makes me wonder…what took me so long?
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