Giving Back

Volunteer work in a troubled world

Hi Zan, Hi Pa

Volume #30

December 10th, 2024

HI, PA: It’s one of those times when I avoid looking at the news because each headline seems worse than the last—war, suffering, climate crisis, political chaos… I feel frustrated that all of it seems beyond my control, which is why I’ve decided to get involved with volunteer projects again to feel like I’m having some positive effect on the world, however small. So I thought we could talk about volunteering and giving back to our communities. Do you remember your first volunteer experience or your first experience seeing your family members volunteer?

HI, ZAN: Volunteering is a wonderful cure for all kinds of ills: feeling discouraged, helpless, guilty, sad, spoiled, even lonely. I salute you for responding to the negative news by doing something positive.

I’m not sure it was my first volunteer experience, but one summer in college I volunteered at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, MA, the same place Helen Keller spent time. I chose that type of volunteer experience because a few years earlier I’d suffered a serious eye injury playing stickball, and for a while it seemed I’d lose sight in one eye. Working with a blind young man once a week was my way of giving thanks for a full recovery.

ZAN: I didn’t know that! I remember you telling me about that experience but I never knew that was the reason… That’s a beautiful thing for a young man to do.

I’ll never forget my first volunteer experience. I was maybe 10 years old and working towards the Bronze Award in Girl Scouts, which involves identifying a need in your community and dedicating 20 hours of service to it. The project I chose was volunteering with a local battered women’s shelter—along with a couple of other Girl Scouts (and an adult supervisor), I babysat a bunch of children in the shelter while their moms went to Bible study. I thought it would be like some of the other babysitting I’d done by that point, but it wasn’t… I was pushing a little boy on the swing when he started punching at the air and said “Boom, boom, boom, like Daddy hits Mommy.” That moment led to an epiphany for me: not everyone has had a peaceful, happy upbringing like mine, and maybe it’s more helpful than I once believed to show them what a healthy relationship with another person is like.

That experience started me on a lifelong (so far) path of volunteering with troubled children. And nine years later, I returned to that shelter as a volunteer again.

PA: I remember when you did that. I think it’s often the case that the person volunteering gets at least as much out of the experience as those who are being helped.

I didn’t do much at Perkins. I just met this young man—who was blind and also slightly cognitively disabled—took his arm and we’d walk from the campus into downtown Watertown and have dinner, talk for half an hour, then walk back. He could play the piano by ear and he’d sometimes play for me after the meal. I grew up surrounded by a certain degree of racism and what we now call ‘homophobia’, and the young man was black and I’m white, so, in those days, walking arm-in-arm with him in public took a small amount of courage. Did my visits help him much? I don’t know, but it was helpful to me.

ZAN: I would bet he still remembers your kindness.

PA: In grad school I volunteered with the Rhode Island Association for the Blind, with another young man. In addition to not being able to see, he had violent whole-body spasms every couple of minutes, grunting loudly and twitching, all his muscles clenching. He lived in a group home and loved two things: eating and listening to music. It was a long bus ride for me to get to him, but, again, I honestly feel like I was helped more than he was. Horrible spasms every hour of his life, not being able to see, and he was nothing but pleasant every single time I was with him. On my last visit, he insisted on taking me out for a meal and, again, it was a lesson for me to be in a public place and not give a shit what the people around us were thinking, not care about the looks we got. Mostly, the experience was a profound lesson in appreciation. I mean, the life I had compared to the life he had! And he was happy!

Have you ever had a negative experience while volunteering?

ZAN: Of course, working with troubled or underprivileged kids there have been a lot of tough moments—having to break up fights because the kids got aggressive with each other, figuring out how to answer difficult questions when one girl wanted me to go through her “abstinence only” health class homework with her, listening to young children in an Immigrant and Refugee center share their traumatic stories in Spanish of crossing the border between Mexico and the US… There was even one time I learned that another group of volunteers had been physically abusive with some children in the program, and I had to go to bat for the kids with the volunteer organization!

PA: Holy God! Talk about an education!

ZAN: As you said, “it’s often the case that the person volunteering gets at least as much out of the experience as those who are being helped.” And that’s also related to some of my negative experiences. There have been times when I felt like my efforts were completely futile, when I’ve wondered am I actually making a difference or am I just doing this for my own ego? Even if my intentions are good, is this even the kind of help that’s needed?

This was especially the case for me in Cambodia, where I started a charitable organization with a friend. We raised money to buy textbooks, computers, and playground equipment for a run-down school in the countryside, then delivered those supplies and spent some time in the small village where the school was. During those days in the village, I felt a little uncomfortable—not only did I sense I was acting out the “white savior” trope even though the funds didn’t come out of my pocket, but I also got the feeling that these donations might not have been wanted, nor would they change much for the kids or teachers. It was quite literally a life-changing few days for me, as I started questioning the ideas behind charity, volunteering, and giving back.

I know you’ve had a similar experience—did that discourage you from volunteering in the future?