These are Celia Rivenbark’s remarks offered at the Harrelson Center’s recent volunteer celebration.
Good morning!
Thank you so much for being here this morning. I’m not surprised that, once again, you have showed up because you’re volunteers. Volunteer, as you probably know, is from the Swahili root word “vol” which means “to kill yourself” and unteer, which means for no pay.
I love volunteering. Most of the time. And that’s what we’re going to talk about a little this morning. The imperfect world of volunteering. The crazy stuff, the icky stuff, the uncomfortable why did I ever agree to do this stuff.
Because it’s not all 8:30 a.m. sunshine is it, this volunteering business? Sure, we know at some point we’ll say: “I get back more than I give” because it’s true. We know that part.
But what we talk less often about are the frustrating moments, the humbling moments. The times when we hear that little refrain in our brains: No good deed goes unpunished.
So let’s dig into that a little.
My husband and I have volunteered for a pretty wide variety of organizations for decades. I don’t tell you this to say, “Ooooh, lookit us. We’re good people. Please like us.” I tell you this so you’ll know I get it. I get all of it. The good, the gratifying, the cry moments when you’ve helped someone in need and the times when nothing seems to be going right and you can almost feel your heart turning coal black and closing up on the spot.
People who don’t volunteer or who do so infrequently have a very romanticized view of what it’s like. And that’s completely understandable.
Those of us who have volunteered for a long time for many different entities and causes know it can challenge you in a way nothing else will. It can cause you to look deep inside your own self and confront your own prejudices and judgments and all the other things you never thought were part of your make up.
Sometimes I think that’s part of the plan. We arrive all fresh faced on the job to ladle soup into a bowl or give a ride to the cancer center or clean and break down 150 finger-pinching metal cots at the warming shelter downtown. We are ready to become, as we Methodists like to say, the hands and feet of Christ.
This is harder than it sounds, though.
Because the soup “isn’t very good” according to the client. He could do a much better job, he says. When he used to make soup, it was delicious. This? This stuff you just handed him with a big dumb smile on your face? It kinda sucks.
You are shocked by his rudeness. You weren’t expecting a shower of praise, but this was bordering on hateful. Here’s the thing: You need to get over it.
The cancer patient you thought would be so grateful yells at you for being a few minutes early. You can’t possibly be angry at her. Her life has been upended by a diagnosis that threatens not only her life but her financial stability. You tell her no problem. You’ll be outside and she can take as much time as she needs. But it gnaws at you that she barked at you. Does she think you don’t have 8 million other things to do today? And then you feel like a jerk for even thinking like that. It’s OK. If you didn’t realize it before, it turns out you have your own fairly common diagnosis: you’re human. Breathe deep and know her day is fixing to be exponentially worse than yours and she didn’t ask for any of that. You need to get over it.
The little knot of homeless folks huddled outside the warming shelter have finished breakfast and are smoking cigarettes. You watch them from inside where you’re stripping linens from urine-soaked cots. The one guy who cursed you for tossing the cold sausage biscuit he left on his cot an hour before, is telling a story and gesturing. The others are laughing. Good. He’s not always a jerk, you think. The shelter director hands you a galvanized bucket and asks you to pick up the butts so the host church won’t complain. You will do anything to get away from the pee sheets so that’s fine. As you fill the bucket, one of the men in the little knot of talkers casually finishes a cigarette and flicks the still-burning butt in your direction.
What goes through your mind at this gesture has nothing to do with service to others and everything to do with wanting to say, “What the hell is the matter with you?”
Of course, you don’t say anything, but you do deliver a death stare. You have been downgraded from hands and feet of Christ to something a little more relatable: Pissed off human with an attitude. And, as hard as it is as you kneel over that little patch of cigarette butts that has been planted beside the back door of the church, you’re going to need to get over it.
My friend, Amy, tells of the time she delivered food to a family living at Family Promise, a wonderful charity that houses working families who need a place to stay while they save enough money to get their own apartments.
Amy is a classic do-gooder. She jumps into every cause with the enthusiasm of a tail-wagging puppy. She was assigned a night to bring dinner and decided to bring homemade tacos. I think she even fried the shells!
As she unpacked her homemade guacamole and seasoned beef and crispy shells; her Tupperware containers of cheese and onions and chopped tomatoes, the family looked genuinely sad.
“What’s wrong?” she asked the dad. “I know you said you liked tacos.”
He said, “We wanted Taco Bell. Why didn’t you bring Taco Bell?”
Amy was having a cigarette butt moment right then and there, but she just kept putting the food out. Afterward, she cleaned up and threw the food she’d spent all day preparing in the trash.
Here’s the thing. Amy did her best. We all do our best. But what we don’t always understand is these folks we are serving aren’t trying to be difficult. It’s just that this is one area in their lives where they have agency. They’re not used to having any kind of vote in anything. They’re told how to act, what to eat, when to go to bed, where to throw a cigarette butt, all of it.
Does that mean they should lash out? No. But remember, it’s not about the tacos. It’s not about having a stranger show up 10 minutes early for a ride. To our minds, arriving early is a good thing. But not if you’ve now put someone in the position of being ready early. Now they feel like they’ve inconvenienced YOU and, yes, they are tired of feeling like they’ve disappointed someone again.
So they lash out.
I want to tell you the story of two lasagnes that sounds made up because it just happened last Thursday, one week ago today, and it so perfectly illustrates the yin and yang of volunteer work that you will be tempted to think I made it up. But I did not.
For about 18 months, I’ve been volunteering with Lasagne Love. It’s a national program that has finally come to Eastern North Carolina. You take a homemade lasagne to someone who has signed up to receive it. The goal is to let them know they deserve this. Here’s a stranger who cares about you. And who is saying to you – through these three luscious layers of noodles and meat sauce and cheese – “I know you are tired. I see you. I want to help. Tonight, you don’t have to cook.”
It’s not an income thing, it’s more of a support thing. I’ve delivered 18 lasagne dinners in New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties and in nearly every instance, the client has cried.
Not heaving sobbing crying, just a little tear or two.
I’ve been hugged. I’ve been texted later with gushy grateful notes. I’ve felt very good about myself indeed.
So, last Thursday, I delivered a lasagne to a woman who screamed obscenities at me because she thought I was her ex-boyfriend knocking on the door. I walked down her front steps to an open window and yelled through the screen: “Hey! I’m with Lasagne Love. Remember? I just texted you I was coming at 4.”
The woman jerked opened the door, asked me if I had any money on me, asked if I would give her my T-shirt, took the food and slammed the door.
She definitely didn’t hug me or cry.
And I have to say, I walked back to my car feeling very much the same way I had picking up those butts in the church yard.
Anyone who cooks knows lasagne is a fairly labor-intensive dish. It’s not something I cook often for that very reason. But I do make at least one a month to give away. And now, it had been ripped from my arms, and the door had been slammed and this after a shakedown for money.
Why, I never!
And then I had some very uncharitable thoughts. Something about being pretty hungry at that moment and wanting my lasagne back.
I thought about Amy and the tacos but this seemed worse. I had a little pity party in the car, driving back home. The truth was I’d been so busy making that lasagne I had not realized we had nothing at home to eat. But you know what? We could just go out. No big deal. That’s privilege up close and personal. It was an instant moment of “There but for the grace of God go I” and I need to remember that until my brain breaks from the repetition.
This woman’s circumstances were definitely not typical of my usual Lasagne Love clients. For starters, she lives in arguably the worst public housing project in Wilmington. She is the face of generational poverty and it made me hurt to think about what her life had been like up to that point.
My lasagne saga continued two hours later with a second delivery to Family Promise where a couple of families needed dinner and our Sunday School class had signed up to help.
I was still thinking about my earlier delivery and how poorly it had gone when I set the table for the clients, five adults and five very young children. I heated the lasagne in the common area kitchen, dressed the salad and sliced the garlic bread. Just as I finished up, the family members arrived, told me about their day at work and let me hold the most adorable 6-month-old baby I think I’ve ever seen. They were hungry and appreciative and even asked for the recipe so they could make it when they get their own apartment.
It won’t be much longer they said. They’ve saved up for months now and they couldn’t have done any of it without Family Promise feeding, sheltering and loving on them. Most especially that last. They realized somebody saw this wasn’t the end of their story and had faith in them. They were like so many folks who are one paycheck away from eviction. Medical bills, a sudden layoff … for folks who were barely hanging on, this could mean having to live in your car. It happens way more than we’d like to think. Self-worth is shattered in the process. Programs like Family Promise restore that by saying: “Here. Stay here til you get on your feet. You deserve this.”
When they finished eating, they thanked me over and over. I don’t ever want to be the volunteer who has to be thanked. It’s not about us. It’s not about being thanked or getting huffy when nobody notices our good deeds. In fact, that’s toxic volunteering. It’s not, and never was, about us.
That night, I thought about the woman in the housing project. Hardened by life and possibly a lot of drugs, she’d given up on the pleasantries. What was the point? I certainly didn’t fix her life, but I did make sure she had a decent meal for a couple of days.
That’s the way it goes with volunteering. Sometimes, you’re the one doing the feeding—literally AND metaphorically—the first lasagne — but sometimes you get fed in the process—the second lasagne.
The trick is not to get fed up. The work is too important, the need too great, for that to happen.
We all need to realize it’s not going to be easy or pleasant all the time. And that’s normal. Life for the folks we’re volunteering to help has most likely never been easy, pleasant or even bearable.
They need us. And we need to sit with the tough moments for a minute and then get up, dust our egos off and get back to doing the work.
It’s powerful what y’all do for others. Even on the most challenging days, remember you’re making a huge difference. You volunteer because you are determined not to leave this life without having eased another’s burden in whatever small way.
Sometimes, you may feel you haven’t made much of a difference, but I can tell you that’s not true. Showing up, with compassion and without judgment shows your clients both of those things still exist in the world. And that’s huge.
Remember that on the days when your volunteer work has been less Hallmark moment and more Cops episode.
And give yourself lots of grace if it’s just not a good fit. Find something else out there that uses your particular skill set. There’s no shame in that.
For my husband, he loves to go body surfing. So he organized a trip to the beach for about 25 Wilmington fifth graders who live in the projects and had never seen the ocean. Not only did the kids have a great time but also they were given the gift of possibility. This could happen. What else might be out there for them?
Thank you for everything you do and for doing it even when it becomes frustrating. Switch it up til you find something you can’t imagine not doing. Give yourself grace; give your clients even more grace. God bless you all.
