In 1995, I organized my first service project on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. After grad school, I signed up for AmeriCorps, aka the Urban Peace Corps, for a 10 month stint working as a disaster relief worker with the American Red Cross. I recruited 80 young people and their parents/friends to come together to rehabilitate a school in South Central Los Angeles. We painted three murals throughout the campus, picked weeds, planted trees and flowers and we painted classrooms and a graffiti filled fence that surrounded the school. We left so proud of a hard day's work, so motivated that we could make a difference; so much so that I signed on for another 8 years of doing the same type of work. My story is not different of the more than half a million young people who committed a year and today are still involved in community work.
As a mom of two now, one of my favorite family memories is of me and my children at a service project, like the multitudes of activities planned today. This summer, the kids and I participated in a service project where we cleared out brush to minimize CA wild fires. Side by side, me and my 9YO cut down branches with a saw and clippers (approved by the forest rangers, of course) and my 5 YO helped to pick them up and haul them away. It was a great way to spend the afternoon - outside in the sunshine, feeling like we were doing something useful together. Dr. King himself said, "Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve." That afternoon drove even the littlest one in my family was "great" that day.
Today thousands of Americans volunteered to clean streams, paint classrooms and collect food for the needy. I caught myself thinking, "I don't have time to volunteer, I have laundry and grocery shopping to do. I don't have time to "be great" because I don't have childcare this afternoon." But then it hit me like train (Yes, I admit I am slow.)...on most days, many of us care for elderly parents or children and keep our families afloat. We volunteer in classrooms, recycle and drop change in the hands of beggars. We make the worlds of the ones we love a better place.
Whatever it is that you did today, whether it was for an entire day of painting graffiti, blogging about your favorite cause or making sure that the kids were cared for and loved. Just remember you were "great" today and are everyday because being a mother/parent is "serving"! I just needed a holiday to remind me of that. Thanks for making the change we ALL want to see in the world.
Sheila waxes poetic about public service and other random thoughts at xiaolinmama.
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