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View submission: Have you done and volunteer work ?
Yes, I have and do.
I worked for 2 years with the homeless through my church. I did things during the week, not at our church.
I met with the street preacher in our city under the bridge, under an overpass downtown where he met and talked with homeless people.
I joined him to distribute goods our church had collected.
I'd take things we collected to his house for him and his wife to distribute other times. He used to be homeless and in prison himself. He and his wife lived in a home built by Habitat for Humanity in our city.
Each Sunday I left the house early to drive to a local Panera and I picked up all the old bread, cakes, bagels etc. from them to take it to the homeless shelter in our city and after delivering that there, I drove several from the homeless shelter to our church.
So, for those two years my wife and our 3 children drove separately to and from church as I left much earlier than they did and after church and then bible class, I had to drove those homeless back to the shelter.
I've done many other things as a one off here and there, not over and over like I did above.
At churches I've gone to over the decades I've gone up the minister to ask them what they wanted or needed to be done that no one wanted to do. They always had things they wanted done but some things folks didn't want to do as they chose other "nicer" things or "easier" things. I simply told the ministers that I'd do things they wanted done that hadn't been done.
I did that a lot while going through my divorce from my lying cheating ex-wife. I didn't want to be alone in my new place so I worked late, went to the gym, back to the office and I also went to bible classes and I went to speak to my minister to tell him to load me up with things he wanted/needed to be done so as to keep me busy as I didn't want to be home alone.
Deep cleaning, work outside the church cleaning up, planting, painting, mulching, planting flowers, deep cleaning inside, like in the bathrooms like using a toothbrush around the edges of the floors, around the toilets etc.
I don't think this next thing could be classified as volunteering but after my divorce, on Xmas day I'd take my 3 children, who were only 4, 6 and 9 when I divorced their lying cheating mother, to a nursing home on Xmas day.
I didn't know anyone there or have any family there. I just wanted the older folks to be able to see young children, to ask them what Santa had brought them etc.
Seeing the eyes light up from many of the older folks in those nursing homes was worth it.
My youngest child was so outgoing, he'd talk to strangers sitting at the next table in restaurants, on his own and they'd talk back to him, smile, laugh as he was really something, even at 3 and 4 years old.
He'd sit on the lap of some of those older women in their wheelchairs out in the common room and happily tell them what Santa had brought them and they were happier than he was just because they were seeing a young child on Xmas day.
Many of them didn't have any family or any other visitors on Xmas day. It was sad.
Many of them cried tears of joy.
Yes, I wanted to bring joy to those elderly people there but I also wanted to instill things in my young children, to do for others etc.
About 15 years ago the power was out in the city and it was cold, like 40 degrees and it was raining heavily and a cop was soaked directing traffic with no traffic lights working.
I saw him so I went through the McDonald's drive through and bought a large coffee and when he directed me to drive through the intersection, I stopped right next to him, lowered the window and gave him the coffee. He hesitated, he saw my 3 young kids in the car with me, I told him I saw him directing traffic in the rain so I went to the McDonald's right there to get him a coffee.
He smiled, thanked me and he was happy.
I did that mostly for my children to see, as an example. No, that wasn't volunteering either but a parent needs to model things for their children.
When my children were older kids, teens, I took them to a homeless shelter on Thanksgiving so we could all serve food, with others, to the homeless. My daughter wasn't so happy about it, she was uncomfortable, but it made an impression upon her.
That was years ago, she's 25 now and we've talked and she told me how happy she was I had them do things like that so it worked, which I knew it would.
There's nothing here!