Throughout my life, I have had opportunities to volunteer with different causes for different reasons. Truthfully, a majority of these experiences were facilitated by invitations from various judges who thought it would be beneficial for me to get involved in these causes during my wilder days as a young man. However they were initiated, the times I spent volunteering were always glimpses at reasons to be grateful and how other people live their lives, or a chance at perspective.
When I was 25 living in Delray Beach, Florida, I was inspired to volunteer for a different reason. I had a friendly debate with some friends concerning some issues in the community. These issues had been occurring and affecting the community for years and I am confident that they are still occurring, just as I am sure that the same debates continue to take place as well. When I left the conversation I was overwhelmed with what a waste of time it was to debate a topic that will never change nor be affected by the conversations had around it. I felt the need to affect something.
That night I looked up volunteer opportunities in my local area and found Habitat for Humanity’s web site. I signed up to volunteer on a Saturday morning, not knowing anything other than I was ready to influence something for the better. I could not have known how much my life would be affected by this moment.
I showed up and was introduced to some volunteers, including Ana Neira, the coordinator for the program I was going to be helping out with, A Brush With Kindness. A Brush With Kindness paints houses within a certain radius around the new home constructions to bring up the average aesthetic value of the neighborhood. The program helps to make not just one house in a neighborhood look better, but the whole neighborhood itself.
I met Ana and some other volunteers, heard their preliminary introduction explaining Habitat for Humanity, and got to work. In a little over 5 hours, we primed the entire house, which was to be painted the next weekend. I had a great time, met new people, and felt relief concerning my need to be an agent of change in some way.
The next week I returned to the house and painted with a new volunteer group, but many of the same volunteers from the week before were there. Steady volunteers and prospective homeowners who are working off their “sweat equity” hours make up the backbone of Habitat’s workforce. So I saw some of the same faces, worked another 5 or 6 hours, and stayed after to help clean up. As I was getting ready to leave I was struck with an amazing moment of clarity. I had lived in Delray Beach, a small, beach community, for 5 years at that point. I had never been in that neighborhood. I had never seen how much poverty existed, in pockets among million dollar homes and affluent developments. Even more striking was the fact that the poverty stricken neighborhood I had entered into the week before, after two days of work, looked dramatically better than it had before. People from the community got together, worked hard, and improved the lives of others in the community drastically. In these neighborhoods, pride of ownership of your home cannot be calculated or valued the same way as in other places. To give this gift of rebirth to the home we worked on and in turn to the people who lived there was a power that felt as if it should be reserved for God Himself. The fact that I had gotten to meet new people and be emotionally recharged from the work of those two days was a close second to the fact that we had helped change someone’s life forever for the better.
So instead of leaving there that day content with my involvement and the change I had helped bring about, I came back again. I worked on another house in another neighborhood. I met more volunteers and potential homeowners. All were there for their different reasons, but we all kept coming back for the same reason. We were a part of something truly good, something bigger than ourselves.
I became a crew leader and volunteered most weekends for the next calendar year. I had a hand in transforming dozens of homes, neighborhoods, and lives in the time I gave to Habitat for Humanity. What I got in return was simply staggering. I developed a confidence and inner peace that I never had before as I began to comprehend that every week I was a part of something so undeniably good. I was given a quality of perspective that I had never known, starting to understand that my problems and worries were never as bad as those of people less fortunate than me, and in turn never as bad as I thought. But most important of all, I became part of a family. Ana Neira, my boss in the A Brush With Kindness program, became my older sister. Teja and Periel, two young girls who started coming every week to help out, became my younger sisters. Jason and Jennifer Williams, a beautiful couple working towards owning their own home, became my close friends. When I decided 5 months ago to move to Los Angeles, one of the hardest parts of my decision was to leave this cause and these people behind. My going away party with the Habitat for Humanity crew was one of the most gratifying emotional experiences of my life. I came to Habitat to help someone else, and what I got was so much more than I could have ever imagined.
Volunteering is not something than can be done; it is something that should be done. There is nothing quite like giving freely of your resources for the benefit of others. There is no excuse. Volunteering is not about money, although it can always help get more accomplished. It is about the things we all have to give: time and energy. There are no barriers that your time and energy cannot overcome when coupled with the time and energy of others who unite for a purpose. The feelings of accomplishment and belonging to a family are available to anyone who is willing to take the time out of their busy lives and give something new a chance. The experiences I had with Habitat for Humanity transformed my goals, my spirit, and my life. That is why I now want to continue volunteering and helping others experience the evolution of the soul that I have only experienced through one thing: helping other people.
http://www.habitat.org/
