Volunteering in the USA

I am Polish. So is my friend Tomek. And yes, we’ve been volunteering in the USA. For many people it may sound a little bit weird: two Polish people volunteering in a much more developed and affluent country. But don’t be deceived by appearances. In almost every place there are people who need a helping hand. In every place there are people who struggle to pay their bills, to buy the most staple products or people who are left stranded not having anybody to accompany them in their daily life routine.

Even in Beaver Creek...The area which is well-known for lavishness, rich visitors and even richer locals. I’ve been here for some time already, I’ve done some observation and I can confirm that this is an irrefutable fact that lots of people here have money to burn. But "lots of" doesn’t mean everybody. It would be gross overgeneralisation to say that. I think that it’s really important to realise that those who are in dire need of help are usually invisible. So is in the Vail Valley area.

I realised this when I was volunteering at the Salvation Army in Avon, Colorado. This is a religious charitable organisation whose mission is to bring salvation to the destitute and hungry. Its main goal is as follows:

€œThe Vail Valley Service Unit of the Salvation Army provides emergency assistance and strives to meet human needs, in an effort to promote self-sufficiency. In fact, thats so important its our mission statement. The Vail Salvation Armys overall goal is to stabilize living conditions by providing food, shelter and housing, utility assistance and basic needs for families and individuals who are temporarily unable to provide for themselves.

Before visiting the Salvation Army premises I didn’t even realise that there are so many families in the valley that actually need help because of various reasons. I've got to know that this particular unit of the organisation helps approximately 500 families on a monthly basis. It came as a bit of a shock to me because I had a totally different conception of the valley and its inhabitants. It was a very meaningful lesson to me. We shouldn’t take people at face value, make overgeneralisations and give up in attempts to help somebody just because we assume that they don't need any help.

So the task we were given was to do some weeding in the garden. It wasn't the easiest one, especially owing to the fact that the sun was beating down mercilessly on our heads. Plus - any type of activity at the elevation much higher than the sea level (yep - Colorado is the highest state) may be intensely painful. But the good news was that that I loved the idea of doing something new, something in the open air and something for a change. It was a very rewarding experience. We came home exhausted and quite dirty but we felt some sense of fulfillment. Maybe we weren't rescuing anybody, maybe it wasn't a super important mission without which the world would fall apart but we were really happy that we could offer our free time and share our positive energy. I think that volunteerism is not only about some grand initiatives. Volunteerism starts with small gestures. Once you've learned how to derive pleasure from it, you'll be bitten by the volunteering bug :)

That's why we won't surely make do with this single experience but we'll try our hand at some other volunteering activities. Here as well as when we are back in Poland.

And below there are some snapshots of our day at the Salvation Army.

Take care and try to be bitten by the volunteering bug!