volunteer regularly

Or, I made a playlist. Which took a really long time since I mostly listen to inappropriate music for a cocktail party.

This was fun but less satisfying than other volunteering experiences. Maybe because the effect is so indirect. I don’t know the nonprofit organization well enough to understand how the money from the fundraiser will be used.

i went to help out at an after-school cooking club for kids w/learning disabilities. there were more volunteers than students, i felt more in the way than helpful. we made enchiladas, brownies, and lemonade. there was some basketball and arm wrestling in between.

i think i’ll try another couple of projects with New York Cares & if nothing seems to fit, i’ll try a different organization. maybe something more long-term.

meanwhile, lunchbox and his coworkers are talking about setting up an after-school program to teach kids how to program computers! so ambitious! usually i am supportive of whatever he wants to do (learn circuitry? go running in the morning? quit your job & go back to school? yes! go for it! do it!) but with this idea – i really have to try to stifle my skepticism when he talks about it… and am mostly unsuccessful.

i don’t know why it bugs me. i’ve been asking him to volunteer with me for years now. this is great! maybe it’s because i get angry when he starts explaining computer programming stuff to me.

my friend asked me to help out at a costume making workshop at the CMA in the LES. we helped little kids make masks & hats. it was pretty fun, there was glue & glitter everywhere. the kids were pretty outgoing as well, which made things easier.

after the mask-making, there was a parade, and the Moko Jumbies walked on giant stilts above the little kids. the artist who designs their costumes, Laura Barbata, is amazing & it was nice to work on the project with her. volunteering is definitely more fun than working.

hey the block party was actually pretty fun!

it started out in chaos (people didn’t show, things were late, car drivers were angry & the cops didn’t even put out the barricades!), but then we blocked off the street ourselves, got some kids to start drawing & everything else went smoothly!

please take a look!

i went to volunteer training at the Office of Recycling Outreach and Education (for nyc). did you know that new york city residents produce 12,000 tons of trash per day? 7.5% of that is plastic film (grocery bags, plastic wrap…) & 5.7% is clothing/textiles.[1] and we recycle 17% of our trash but 35% of our trash is recyclable. so that means… we’re throwing away over 2,000 tons of recyclable stuff a day into the regular garbage to be incinerated or buried in a landfill. EVERY DAY!

also, the recycling program makes money for new york city. so it’s like we’re throwing away $.

anyway. now i can attend events and sit at a table & hand out stickers & tell people about recycling and waste reduction. making less trash is better than recycling!

btw, why is it always women at these volunteer things. why the fk aren’t there more guys volunteering? i’ve even asked my guy friends to come with me (especially the chronically single guys), and they won’t come! i almost got lunchbox to come to this session with me but he had a last-minute work thing.

[1] these numbers are from cenyc.org. also, textiles can be recycled at union square on certain days!

april-may-june were spent sporadically scrambling around getting the block party application together.

my friends & i received a small grant from transportation alternatives to have a block party in the lower east side this summer. it will promote bicycling & sustainability & community. i naively thought having a party would be easy, but the permit applications alone are pretty daunting.

if you or anyone you know would be interested in helping, please get in touch with me! especially if you’re in the lower east side!

this project was actually more like, ‘crafts & games with high-functioning mentally disabled chinese-american young-adults’. it was a lot of fun though. at first i felt awkward, the project leader was very quiet & the 2 other volunteers jumped right into talking with the students in a super-enthusiastic/cheerleading voice, the kind women use with other people’s children. all like, ‘ooooh, did you draw a mansion? i bet it is! that’s beauuutiful!’

...the students responded well to them, i just can’t speak in that lilting voice unless i’m making fun of someone… so i played connect four with a quiet sullen girl. we didn’t talk much but we both laughed & smiled a little, so i think it went well. also she beat me a couple of times (hey, we were playing speed scrabble! she would get mad if i paused to think).

i don’t know whether to go back or not. it would partly be out of guilt. the students seemed really upset that the volunteers from the last session hadn’t returned. also, reading Women & Money is forcing me to rethink what volunteering & generosity means.

i’d like to volunteer once a month this year. in january, i colored & made toy boats with kids at a recreation center in chinatown. it was more difficult than i expected – the kids mostly wanted to run around and play with their gameboys.

by the end of the two hours, most of the kids had glue & paint on their hands.

i think volunteering would be more fulfilling/i would be more helpful if i worked at just once place instead of trying a new project every time.

coming up in february: english conversation partners

and then i’d like to volunteer at a soup kitchen and an animal shelter & then i’ll choose a long-term project.

also MillionTreesNYC looks interesting.

new york cares day was on saturday.

it was a lot of fun. my friend & i (aka the mural artists) didn’t get to paint much; we helped the other volunteers get supplies & mix paints instead.

drawing the murals was actually the easiest part of the project. people were really supportive & helped out with ideas. people also helped us write ‘hello’ in different languages for an international mural.

working with the school turned out to be the most difficult part of the project. we spent a lot of time on hunting people down for meetings and approval on the design. they didn’t seem to care at all about the projects. it was a strange experience.

i don’t think that i volunteer in order to hear other people thank me or appreciate me for my efforts. but the school treated us like we were a bother to work with. i hope at least the high school students like the murals… or that they don’t make fun of the murals.

oh well. i’m going to sign up for volunteer projects that fill an actual need next time. there’s another organization (one brick) that doesn’t require a long-term commitment & it doesn’t require you to attend a registration meeting either. i’m going to rope the bf & maybe some friends into volunteering at a soup kitchen with me.

you could be a mural designer! no questions about yr artistic past asked! new york cares is looking for volunteers to design murals for public schools in brooklyn and the bronx. you would work with the school to come up with the design and then sketch it on the wall. you’re allowed to work with another person. other volunteers will do the actual painting on new york cares day (oct 20).

here’s the application & details

this is my first time signing up. the training session isn’t for another two weeks. that’s pretty much all i know about the project. it sounds really fun though.