Volunteering

I never did any volunteering during my working years unless you consider my membership on several community-service committees—I didn't volunteer per se, I was appointed to them by virtue of my professional positions. I reasoned that because of my irregular work schedule, my time wasn't my own. I think that is really a feeble excuse—if I had wanted to find the time, I probably could have. Once I retired, I no longer had any viable excuses. But even then I didn't step up to the plate.

Four years ago my wife followed up an ad in the local paper expressing a need for volunteers to deliver Meals on Wheels, freshly prepared hot food to qualifying elderly, infirm or needy in our community. We met with the director to get an idea of what would be expected of us, felt we could do it, and on Friday the following week we drove a route for the first time. It soon became one of the most important events in our weekly schedule second only to doctors' appointments.

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Sebring Meals on Wheels is a community-supported organization; we receive no state or federal monies and therefore are free of the demands and limits that so often are the 'strings attached'. Support comes from individuals, companies, not for profits, and a variety of fund raising activities. The driver-deliverers pay their own expenses; we get no reimbursement of any kind unless one considers the annual driver appreciation dinner as reimbursement. But for my wife and me there is a very big reward—the personal satisfaction of doing something for someone without a quid-pro-quo or any other kind of payoff.

It has been said, "Kindness is its own reward." I understand this to mean that an unselfish act of giving with no expectation of a tangible reward, gives the doer a natural high, which is a powerful reward in and of itself. The brain likes to get high; if not a fact, all of the intoxicants and psychotropics so widely abused would have no market value. The natural high that results from an unselfish act of giving to someone in need is not burdened with the dangers of addiction, overdose, harmful side-affects, hangover, arrest, bankruptcy or marriage and family problems. A natural high is a great return on your investment of the time and effort it takes to give of yourself to the needs of another.

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