Volunteer once a month

*Culinary Explorers with 3rd graders
*Yoga & Comfort food with a youth group

I was assigned 20 hours of community service to do for my traffic ticket. I decided to work at the Salvation Army. I have done almost 15 hours now and I should be done by next week.

I’ve actually had some fun, even though its required and I found a lot of fun stuff to buy and got some ideas for crafts.

After I’m done with my hours though, I think I’d like to go back to being a shopper instead of a worker. I plan to start volunteering at the Humane Society though! :)

• Culinary Explorers (cooking international cuisine with 8-12 yo)
• Flamenco workshop with children
• Latin dance workshop with children

Unfortunately each project takes up a Saturday morning so I will either rotate between them or commit to one for the school year. I have already done the Culinary and Latin Dance project & liked them equally but the Flamenco class sounds like so much fun. (And I get to break out my flamenco shoes and skirt!!!)

The art project for the children hospital was stained glass tissue paper… made a fruit basket (very original, right!), which turned out fine _{complimented, yes, but mostly because some people try hard to be nice :)} I’m usually the quiet helper, but I really enjoy the random conversations there.

Went to a local screening of The Visitor followed by a discussion about immigrant detention. Very profound arguments by concerned citizens about the wrong practices going on right now… I have yet to meet someone arguing the other way! _{Wonder where the policies come from…!}

The seminar went just fine… we had planned for the worst case scenario but the environment was better than expected. A few glitches here and there, but nothing that couldn’t be taken care of. Interesting guests, courteous audience, positive feedback… yay! It makes me happy to see some people who used to condemn and name-call stand across a table and discuss their viewpoints in WORDS :)

Oh, but I canceled the food bank one to sleep in on a Saturday… shame, real shame, but I felt I needed the sleep!

Went back for another session of the art program in Childern’s hospital. Project of the day: making bead bracelets and necklaces. Lots of creative ideas blooming. And something I learned was that imposed imperfection does not necessarily work! :)

Went to a food bank to organize and package food and cans for distribution. Perhaps not too glorious a task, but simple and useful nonetheless. The instructions were (perhaps intentionally) a bit vague, and it was kind of fun to work with the people around you to figure out which food group each item belonged to!

The monthly Amnesty local meeting was about immigration detention centers this time. It’s scary how some people give up their rights because they simply are not aware of their own rights. The idea of having corporate-run detention centers with their internal guidelines and procedures is yet another thing that I simply cannot understand! I also went to their movie-screening of Made in LA about a group of immigrant women working in sweatshops and struggling for their rights. _{You emotionals out there, consider yourself warned!}

Our Iran-related stuff has been focused on organizing a seminar lately. I’m helping with the organization and management (every group needs a list-nazi, right?). Fund-raising… what can I say… I guess I’m blessed to have friends who save me from the fund-raising process (and fund-raising from me!).

Well, I think my volunteering is lacking in June. I can’t think of anything that I volunteered to do…

I’ll have to try harder in July. My court date for my ticket is tomorrow and I’m hoping I can get off with community service. Then I’ll be required to do it and I’ll have a bit more motivation.

Went to the art-projects-for-kids-in-hospital program. The last time I did this was a long time ago, but it was nice to see the same group of people consistently keep it going. I really like this one, it’s about going in on a weekend to do a project with kids who are bored of staying in their hospital room. The project of the day was to make something by pieces of paper (don’t know the technical/artsy word for it). The environment is relaxed and you can either help someone or let the kids laugh at your clumsiness :)

Also, went to the mentoring/book club thingie from last month, but they stood me up. I emailed them to ask if their schedule has changed, but received no response. Oh well, I might or might not try this again.

Attended another meeting of the local Amnesty chapter, which was about death penalty. Nothing new, but it was nice to hear their argument against capital punishment all in one place.

The second half of the month was different, though. Organized and participated in multiple rallies and vigils related to the aftermath of the presidential election in Iran… but they hardly count as volunteering, ‘cause they were mostly for my own sake.

For the past 3 years during Memorial Day weekend, I have volunteered as a counselor for Magic Moments Family Camp. Magic Moments is a wish-giving organization that works with kids in the state of Alabama who have chronic illnesses. My brother is one of these kids, and we as a family have attended this camp every year since I was in the 5th grade. This may be my last year there, but I enjoyed every minute of it and I hope to continue working with similar kids in the future.

During May I also just happened to get a speeding ticket, which could actually help me with this goal if I do community service to make it up. Thats the good side of it I guess. So during June I am hopeing to volunteer for the Tuscaloosa Humane Society as a Cat Cuddler (I know such a cute name, right?) and maybe make some posters to decorate the rooms for them. I’ll probably do some other things as well.

Attended a mentoring/book reading program for young boys. The goal of the group is to promote responsibility and literacy. Among interesting things they do, they give each child one book per month to read. The person in charge of opening up the facility they use showed up late, and we all had to wait. While the boys were playing football in a nearby field, everybody else kept saying that they are usually much more organized than this… I believe them. :) It was an overall friendly, happy, and positive environment (mentors, boys, and some of their family).

Oh, and also attended the meeting of the local chapter of Amnesty. They had a guest that talked about the situation in DR Congo… about the things that have happened and happen there (here is a link, if you’d like to learn more about it, or support some of the efforts to stop the atrocity). There is an argument that public awareness puts pressure on the authorities there to act more responsible in protecting people’s rights. The sad reality is that the situation there is too awful to expose the public to it without risking that people completely block it out. Very interesting and diverse group of people to interact with and learn from. I still have to find where their passion comes from. Although protecting human rights is a clear statement in theory, I usually find it difficult to take definite sides and avoid the gray region that the lack of information, arbitrariness in law, and the uncertainties in different moral and ethical frameworks make.

go to Hands on Atlanta, and randomly pick something every now and then. But lately, there haven’t been too many options, and some of them are always full (fixed crowd, I assume). I also tried the United Way, but I don’t really like the search there (am I being too picky?), besides, it only redirects you to the project coordinator, and the initial information is not always up to date.

I guess the easiest way is to give up on my obsession with change and diversity, find something I like, and stick to it… be part of the fixed crowd, basically.