Live United

Welcome back!  There's so much on my mind and yet instead we'll post our next guest blog!  Why?  Because Lisa Lewis, District 8 DHS Self Sufficiency head and star United Way board member, supervised her first Day of Caring site and was moved immediately to guest blog that night.  Lisa stepped up at the last minute to help out and brought her wit, wisdom and wealth to our 14th annual Day of Caring.  She writes...

Saturday morning, September 26, dawned bright and clear. I heard the birds chirping outside of my window as I awoke with a happy heart knowing today were the 14^th annual United Way of Jackson County’s Day of Caring. I sprang from bed; so very anxious to let my day begin. I might even have been whistling a happy tune, but I’m not sure about that part.

Okay – so it didn’t happen quite that way. It was more like the alarm blared at 5:30. I threw my shoe at it. It must have accidentally hit the snooze button because somehow I drifted away again. The second time it went off, the thought of throwing another shoe didn’t seem appropriate somehow; after all this was the Day of Caring. It’s not that I wasn’t looking forward to the day, but no one who knows me even slightly would say that I ever awaken with a smile on my face and true-to-form; this day was no different.

Sparing you the details between the shoe incident and actually arriving at my day of caring site, although suffice it to say I had my coffee, took a walk and began to return to some semblance of my normally cheery self. As I became fully conscious I began to have little worries about the day ahead.  Would we have enough volunteers?  Would we have too many?   Would there be enough work for people? Would there be too much work? Exactly who was it that entrusted this duty to me?????

When I arrived at the prearranged meeting site for volunteers, people were already beginning to meet and greet one another. Apparently they don’t have the same aversion to mornings that I do?  It was quickly apparent that these volunteers were happy to be there and it was also apparent from the conversations I heard that this wasn’t their first day of caring. I introduced myself to the Harry and David site coordinator and we began taking people to the site as they arrived.

Several of my worries were quickly put to rest.  There was plenty of work to do and there were plenty of volunteers to do it. Before I had even rounded up all of the volunteers people had begun their own personal day of caring, these kind people were there to get a job done.

I noticed that there were several young people in our group of volunteers. I met 4 young women ranging from the age of 15 to 19. As I spoke to these women and their mothers, I learned that giving back to the community is a way of life for them. One young woman told me she did her first volunteer experience at the age of 5.  She answered phones at the MDA telethon and then handed the phone to her mother since she herself couldn’t write yet. She named off several organizations that she volunteers for, I should have written them down so that I could fully recognize her giving. The 19 year old told me that she and her sisters had been volunteering since they were very young and one of her favorites is volunteering for Habitat for Humanity.

The Day of Caring was definitely a family day for the employees of Harry and David. They brought their spouses and they brought their children and every one of them worked hard to beautify our site. It was humbling to see young people who gladly gave their time on a sunny Saturday when undoubtedly they had other offers from friends. It was incredible to see the amount of work that can be done when more than a dozen people but their hearts and their labor to the job. It was gratifying to be a part of the United Way Day of Caring and to work side by side with people who really do Live United.