When I was a child growing up in a small New England town during the 1960s and ’70s, voluntarism was as natural a part of our family life as the 6 o’clock dinner bell and Sunday afternoon drives. At various times, my father taught religious education, sat on church and political committees, and even served as constable of our tiny town. My mother regularly donated blood and cajoled others into doing the same. She campaigned tirelessly (and hopelessly) for George McGovern, and spent her Friday evenings after work serving as the receptionist at our local hospital. I remember trailing after her as she collected donations for the American Heart Association, and I can still see her scrubbing an elderly neighbor’s floor just hours after she had scrubbed her own kitchen floor. These were not tremendous feats, but simply a way of life.
Sometimes I feel like an oddity today as I strive to follow my parents’ example in my own small community. When I mention that I have to hire a babysitter to attend local committee meetings, friends look at me like I have a screw loose. Who would pay money in order to volunteer their time? In my various volunteer groups, I see the same few people over and over again. Where is everyone else?
Are we all just too busy these days? The popular magazines that land in my mailbox seem to harp on the notion of making time for ourselves. They tell us how to guard our time jealously and how to say no, politely but firmly, when yet another charity or civic organization calls asking for our help. We need, they say, time to exercise, prepare healthy foods, read a good book or take a bubble bath. While I enjoy a long soak in the tub as much as anyone, I am beginning to feel that society’s scale has tipped too far in the wrong direction. In these crazy times, surely a return to home, hearth and family must be good. But have we become so obsessed with our personal health and well being that we are neglecting the health of the community around us?
I am not saying there aren’t millions of Americans making a tremendous difference through volunteer service, but it no longer seems to be a priority in American life. Many who do volunteer limit their commitment to one-time-only assignments. They will bake a cake, help out at a spaghetti dinner, collect pledges for a walk-a-thon. But don’t ask them to chair a committee, serve on a board or commit to showing up at a given time one day a week. While practicing ““random acts of kindness’’ can make the world a friendlier place, what is really needed is a long-term commitment to causes that try to improve our communities.
The lament I most often hear is, ““I wish I could do more, but I just don’t have the time.’’ The argument has some validity. When you are away from your family all day, how can you justify leaving them at night or on the weekend to meet someone else’s needs? It is a difficult choice, and we need to strike a careful balance. But by staying always at home, we are being dangerously shortsighted. When you attend a PTA or school-board meeting, you are working toward a better education for your child. When you run for church council, you are ensuring that the religious community that nurtures your child is strong and healthy. When you chair a fund-raiser for your local first-aid squad, you can rest more easily knowing that when a loved one gets sick, the ambulance crew will have state-of-the-art equipment at the ready.
Educators and child psychologists have long espoused the power of teaching our children by example. If we want our children to grow up to be caring and compassionate adults, we have to show them how. There are many wonderful opportunities today for families to volunteer together. They can serve lunch in a soup kitchen, clean up a roadside eyesore, tag trees or track birds. Social-service organizations are becoming more attuned to the fact that families have precious little time to spend together.
Yet there comes a point when we need to leave our children behind in order to make a significant contribution to the community. If we plan our leavetaking thoughtfully, we can send our children the message that we care for them so much that we are doing everything we can to make their world better. And we show them that caring for others is a responsibility we all must accept.
Surely, there are times in everyone’s life when our personal resources are so depleted that we have nothing left to give. The exhausted mother of a nursing newborn, a single parent working two jobs, a patient coping with the pain and fear of serious illness. But the general complaint, ““I’m too busy, I don’t have the time,’’ doesn’t cut it with me anymore. Having spent 14 years in social service, as a professional and a volunteer, I know too many examples of people with busy, complicated lives who do find the time. The night-shift nurse who drove directly from the hospital to spend mornings helping out in her son’s classroom. The Red Cross driver who showed up faithfully to chauffeur an elderly patient to chemotherapy, though she herself was undergoing radiation treatments . I have friends whose house burned down recently. They kept up with their volunteer commitments, while mired in the details of rebuilding their home. These are everyday people who’ve made community a priority. I wish more would do the same.
At the time my father tutored that prisoner, he had four young children, a round-the-clock job as a boarding-school teacher, dorm master and coach, and a strong avocation as a writer. Yet he found the time to help give a young man a chance at a better life. The jewelry box he received in return serves as a reminder that all of us can help – if we make the commitment.
