Lydia Likes It

The volunteering life {talking the talk}

One year into my volunteering life, everything feels right, feels focused, feels balanced. It's taken the best part of this Trumpian year to bring all of the pieces together, and in that time, while still howling at the sky every day, I've come to know myself a bit better, and to find optimism in what I thought would be a very bleak time.

I've tried a few different things, from sorting books for prisoners to assembling STEM kits for Boston Public School kids, and from registering new Americans to vote to organizing baby clothes for low-income moms, but my work has consolidated now around refugees and immigrants, and helping them to learn English. At the International Institute of New England, I tutor students (mostly Haitian, at the moment) in the afternoon, and assist more advanced students (immigrants from at least a dozen different countries) in an ESOL classroom one evening a week. I've been volunteering there for a year.

In October, I finally connected with St. Stephen's Youth Programs, which you might recall I've been trying to work with for many months. Part of the St. Stephen's mission involves supporting the parents of students in their afterschool program. It was a lucky piece of timing that I renewed my efforts to make a match at the same time the parents asked for an English conversation group. While I'd never started or run such a group, I'd done English conversation work at Project Hope, and I really wanted to give this new group a try. I recruited a few friends (thanks, Jane and Chris), and we all agreed to a six-week trial. Each week I provide some guiding topics and questions, and our one-hour sessions fly by.

Now, five weeks in, everyone -- parents and volunteers -- wants to continue. Each week we get to know each other better, and we're all having a great time. The parents have requested some help preparing for parent-teacher conferences at the end of the month, so that's up next on our agenda. Using materials developed for English for New Bostonians by the Boston Public Schools, we'll work on vocabulary and preparing questions for the teachers.

The volunteering life {a project completed}

I'd completely forgotten the thrill of seeing my name on the cover of a book for the very first time. When I showed Amanda, from the Boston Living Center, the cover of the book she has spent so many months putting together, and which I have helped them produce, I remembered that feeling as her face lit up with glee when she saw her name front and center. Recipes for a Positive Life features nearly 100 recipes for better living with HIV.

These easy-to-prepare recipes (smoothies, chicken, veggies, meatballs, dishes you'd want to make every day) will appeal to everyone; what makes the the cookbook especially useful for the BLC community is that it highlights each recipe's particular nutrients and benefits for people trying to fight the effects of some diseases that might result from HIV, like lipodystrophy, muscle wasting, neuropathy, diabetes, or vitamin deficiencies. 

After a few months of work, Recipes for a Positive Life is ready to print, and thanks to a grant from Memorial Church at Harvard, the BLC will be able to print enough books for their clients, staff, and friends of the agency. It's a great start. (If you'd like to contribute to ongoing aspects of this project, please send me an email.)

Berkeley Community Garden, Boston

For the more than 200 gardeners tending 151 small rectangles of land in the Berkeley Community Garden, two blocks from my house, their gardens provide space to grow vegetables, fruits, herbs, and beautiful flowers, and also provide respite from the hard surfaces of this urban neighborhood. Our location in a neighborhood with a large Asian population guarantees that a contemplative stroll through the block-long garden, which I do on many mornings, offers a view of many interesting and unusual greens, melons, and herbs. Bottle gourds and bitter melons and Chinese greens abound. Gardens like the Berkeley Community Garden build bridges across cultures, with much swapping of plants and sharing of the harvest throughout the growing season, plus potlucks and garden clean-ups that bring people together. Most gardens allocate available plots in the spring, via a lottery system; the annual fee for a garden plot is low, and helps to pay for water and shared maintenance. There are community gardens in every neighborhood of Boston, so get your green thumb on! (These are photos I took last summer; the gardens aren't quite that far along yet, but I'm keeping tabs on them every few days.)

The volunteering life {sometimes, it takes a while}

In this age of instant, some things still take time.

If you are the type of person who wants to find one organization to which you will devote all of your volunteer efforts, it might take months, as it did with my husband Ted, who happily gives his energy to Bikes Not Bombs, a social justice agency that works both locally and globally. 

However, if you're like me -- someone who likes to work for several causes, with several different agencies -- it will take patience to put together the right mix. After you've identified your issues (in my case, adult literacy, and working with immigrants and refugees), you need to search for organizations doing the work that interests you. Keep an open mind; what might not look like a perfect fit can often turn out to be just what you seek.

Then you need to try and make contact. This is where the patience comes in. An initial email or phone inquiry will likely lead to filling out an application. If you are lucky, that application will result in an interview (just like the job hunting process). And in the end, there might not be a current opening, or might not be one that fits your available time. For example, the International Institute of New England, where I'm fortunate to volunteer every week, has a list of 400 volunteers who wish to work there, but many are available only on weekends, when the Institute is closed. In the current political climate, you'll probably find that every organization has a long waiting list for volunteer slots.

Remember, too, that you are not an organization's top priority. If you don't hear back from them right away, it's most likely because they are busy doing the work: feeding or clothing or housing people, finding jobs for them, educating, providing health care. Have patience.

And be a little bit persistent, too. A couple of weeks ago, after months of trying to make contact, I met with St. Stephen's Youth Programs about doing literacy mentoring with high school and college students this summer and beyond. While it's not working with adults, it is literacy, helping students with their writing skills specifically for college application essays and college-level writing requirements. And it's just a few blocks from my house. I followed up by email and let them know I am interested. I have yet to hear back with specifics. However, they are hosting an open house tonight for prospective volunteers, so I signed up to go to that, even though I've already had a one-on-one meeting with them. Time to demonstrate that I am very interested in the program. Patience, plus gentle persistence, is the combination that usually works for me.

Knitting groups

At the women's college I attended, everyone knit, everywhere: in class, in the dorms, at the movies, in the pub. For years after college, I would seek out the most interesting yarns I could find, in local shops or at craft fairs, or while traveling, and I'd make scarves and sweaters and even blankets. And then, as my eyes began to age, I just stopped knitting.

The Pussyhat Project rekindled my knitting passion. I planned to go to the Women's March in Washington DC in January, and wanted to make pink pussyhats for my group. My cousin Sandra and I knit our first hats on Thanksgiving weekend, and I kept on knitting. Somewhere around hat #15, I discovered that my friend and neighbor Jane had been knitting hats, too. We got together one morning to knit, and realized we'd both like to be part of a group that met each month to knit or crochet items for donation to those in need in our community (or to work on our own projects). Jane asked Bead + Fiber, a shop in our neighborhood, to host, and the owner enthusiastically agreed. Wherever you live, check with your local yarn shop, as there are knitting groups everywhere. There's something both comforting and motivating about gathering around a communal table to knit, like a book group without the homework. 

Our brand new group, Knit for Good, meets the first and third Wednesday of each month from 3-5 p.m. at Bead + Fiber in Boston's South End, and all are welcome; please email me for details (instruction available for new knitters; 10% off yarn and supplies for Knit for Good members).