Volunteering. A Way of Life

Hey everyone! So a lot of people have been asking me what it is that I do exactly in Alabama. To be honest, that question is something I’ve been asking myself for months, and my lack of an answer has been really frustrating for me. It’s one of the reasons I stopped blogging for a while. I got discouraged and felt like the things I was doing down here weren’t that important.

I have since learned that I was wrong. I had a conversation with my husband about the Jewish mitzvah (commandment) of tzedakah (giving charity). In the Jewish faith, it is a mitzvah to give 10% of your earnings to charity, and while we have a tzedakah jug that is a huge glass jug that used to have peach cider in it that we picked up in South Carolina on our drive down here last summer, it isn’t so full. The conversation started because I wanted to give more tzedakah and my husband said something truly simple that I just hadn’t thought of before that moment. He said, “Oh. I was just considering your volunteer work as tzedakah for the time being.” I had been looking at my volunteer work as a way to keep busy and I was looking at it as purely selfish. I know it sounds silly, but the thought that I was actually giving back hadn’t crossed mind. Usually this works the other way. People want to give back and don’t ever think about how the skills they learn and utilize in volunteer work helps them with careers later on in life or even just in their personal relationships.

I may be a little backward in how I got into this whole volunteering business, but I have since learned how special volunteering really is. Jews believe that to save a life is to save a whole world, and the same applies to volunteering. To help another person is really helping the whole world.

So as of this moment, I am now volunteering in five different positions. Below is a little description of each.

I am the FRG leader of my husband’s flight class. FRG stands for Family Readiness Group. It is for the spouses and families of the soldiers and is also for the soldiers themselves. I am a source of information, support, connection, and fun. My job is to connect the members of my husband’s flight class and give them the information that is necessary to their lives. What time is the gate closing today? How do I get childcare? When will their training be over? What is Family Day? I also plan activities like barbecues and possibly a dance/get together at the end of training.

I volunteer at the Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, Alabama. The past two weeks, I’ve been helping out with their art camp. The first week we had younger kids, 7-9 and this past week we had older kids 9-13. They did different art projects and were introduced to the fundamentals of art like color and pattern, symmetry and perspective, paint, collage, batik, murals, and pottery. I have also volunteered with them when they went into third grade classrooms throughout the area and taught the students about Cubism and Picasso, and made tangrams with them. I have decided to apply to Masters programs in Museum Education. I really want to work with artifacts and the archaeology side of museums, but seeing the faces of these kids light up when they see, make, or experience art is worthwhile in and of itself.

I am helping one of the offices on post with their filing. Case in point. They hadn’t alphabetized their filing cabinet in three years. I can help!!!

I am teaching a vegetarian cooking class on Tuesdays in August. I may also start volunteering in the afternoons now that Art Camp is over. All of this is for the Edge Program on post which gives pre-teens and teens something to do in the afternoons after school is out or during the summer. Each day is different, but each week follows the same pattern for a month and then it switches up. Fort Rucker just built a new Teen Center, so once it officially opens I will probably help out with activities there as well. I love how volunteering works. I walked into the office, sat down with the mastermind of the Edge program, talked about things I like to do, and ended up promising to teach teens how to cook. The menu is something along the lines of Ratatouille and Homemade Pasta, Eggplant Parmesan, Stuffed Peppers and Taco Salad, and probably banana bread and pumpkin cookies thrown in their somewhere. I have become a chef in my own home, so we will see how that translates to teens used to a diet of steak and potatoes, and who have probably never eaten an eggplant. It should be fun.

Finally, I have been taking AFTB classes, and I have become an instructor after an intensive week of instructor training. AFTB is Army Family Team Building. There are three levels of classes that you don’t have to take in order. Level One is basic Army knowledge: military acronyms, the rank system, customs, how to read your earning statement, your benefits and entitlements, etc. This class is an Amazing introduction to army life and a great way to make friends who are going through the same things that you are going through. Level Two is about Personal Development, including conflict management, communication skills, personality, strengths, and crisis and coping etc. Level Three is all about Leadership and how to strengthen your team and yourself using your skills. It is about communication and encouragement, and team dynamics and problem solving from a leadership standpoint. AFTB really helps army spouses thrive in the army community by giving them knowledge, and resources, and helping them become resilient and self confident. It helps them learn to rely on themselves, help others, and learn to ask for help as well as where to look for that help. After going through the AFTB training myself, I really see how tight a community the army really is if you take advantage of all that it has to offer. I may also now be in charge of the Fort Rucker AFTB newsletter, but we will see how that pans out in the next month.

Here is a video about AFTB that is really quite fantastic. :)

Anyway, volunteering down here has really become my life. I volunteer and then I come home, do some housework and inspire myself on pinterest. Then I make lists of brownie recipes and other chocolatey goodness that I find and add it to my lists of crafts I want to do. WARNING: everyone might get homemade gifts this year. Pinterest = <3 but that may be another post on another day.

Have a great day everyone!!