This past week, I had the chance to do some volunteering. Specifically, my students and I packed food (vitamins, veggies, soy, rice) to be sent around the world to feed the chronically malnourished. We rolled up our sleeves and then got FDA compliant. That meant removing everything from Fitbits to earrings and then scrubbing up. And, of course, donning hairnets. While the two truths about hairnets that cannot be overstated enough are that they are shockingly hot and sometimes itchy, these are five other things I learned from wearing a hairnet all morning.
1. We glamorize hard work.
I have a separate post in the works on this, but here’s the short version of it. Any type of manual labor is hard. Really, really hard. If someone tells you otherwise, they haven’t been working at it long enough. How do I know? I was that person for about 20 minutes. For the first fifty or so bags that I sealed, I was running on optimism and enthusiasm and Carly Rae Jepson tunes. (It wasn’t my playlist but I happily bopped along.) I was contemplating a career change. It was refreshing. It was exciting. It was great.
Then, it wasn’t. My fingers started to blister, my fellow packers started to stall and lose steam, and to be quite honest, I was alternating between bouts of boredom and exhaustion. Thankfully, since I was one adult working with nine teens, I had plenty of problem-solving and troubleshooting to keep my mind occupied for most of the shift. As I packed, I kept trying to imagine doing this day in and day out. It led me to one realization. People who glamorize hard physical work don’t do it anymore if they ever did it at all. Manual laborers don’t have the time or energy to wax poetic about their daily lives. When I was stocked books, hand-sold new titles, and fished pantyhose out of the toilet in the public restroom, I didn’t blog about my stint as a minimum wage laborer. I worked my magic with a makeshift plunger and promptly repressed that memory. It was the only way my mind would allow me to punch that same time clock the following day. I also suspect that many of us who don’t perform manual labor all day every day hold hunches that we would be very good at it. Instead of guesses and hunches and stuff, what we need is a reality check. And I got one.
One half of the food-packing assembly line.
2. Being sick is a huge hurdle.
I hate being sick. It is a colossal pain to write sub plans, nevermind the weird politics and retirement red tape. There is no stopping a school calendar. There are curriculum maps, national testing windows, and local benchmarks to comply with. As a result, there are no throwaway days even if I’m not in house to deliver the curriculum. That means I usually spend 1-2 hours prepping my sub plans on top of the hours I’ve already spend planning the original lesson.
That is my usual perspective on illness. But I now have a new appreciation of subs and my sick bank. One of the first things to greet us was the notice that if we had been sick with coughing, fever, vomiting, or diarrhea in the past 24 hours, we were unable to pack. For many workers, not working means not getting paid. There are no federal laws regarding paid sick leave. While some of us might be tempted to just suck it up and go to work sick, there was no way that I was getting anywhere near the food with a cough. The room supervisors were so vigilant, as they should be. Nobody wants their meal to come with a heaping of cooties, thankyouverymuch. So even if I was willing to work while I was ill, there are many jobs where that simply isn’t possible. The big takeaway here is that the next time Teacher Penny is sick, she can just shut her pie hole.
3. Yes, organizations need donations of time.
Organizations like this run on the backs of volunteers. Okay, they run on hands for scooping, weighing, measuring, sealing, and packing. They also need muscle to transport packed boxes and distribute raw materials on an ongoing basis. Plus, they also need careful labeling to help with logistics.
The honest to goodness truth is that they are always looking for volunteers. And volunteers do important work. Our group packed over 200 boxes of food. That might not seem like much until you remember that each box contained 36 packs of food. So those 200 boxes delivered over 45,000 meals and kept more than 120 kids fed for a year. That is something worth celebrating.
Not pictured: huge smiling faces.
4. But they still need money more.
The entire chart is worth celebrating. But the most important number is at the bottom. That one packing event cost over $10,000. This charity is top-rated by Charity Navigator in terms of giving over 90% of the donations collected straight to feeding children. No donations? No food. It’s as simple as that.
Skeptics tend to assert that they won’t give money because they can’t be sure where it really goes. Do your research online. Work with charities directly. Ask hard questions and demand proof. Then, swallow your skepticism and accept this reality: Without funding, charitable organizations simply can’t run. The end.
Related Post: You Don’t Have to Give, But You Absolutely Should
5. I am not doing enough.
One of the last things that you do when your shift ends is watch a video reminding you of how important the work you just did is. Truth be told, I’ve volunteered here before, so I knew what to expect. I was going to see a once-malnourished child who was now thriving thanks to the food he or she received. What I didn’t realize was that now that I am a mom who is all too familiar with low gestational birth weight and babies and growth charts and percentiles and pounds, I would be absolutely devastated by the two-year-old child who weighed ten pounds.
That’s when something became crystal clear. It had been far too long since I had volunteered at this organization. It had been far too long since I had volunteered at any organization. The problem with doing a job that you are passionate about is that it is easy to get so wrapped up in, so consumed by it, that you forget that you can and should do more.
Related Post: Doubting Your Charitable Giving
I can help beyond my classroom walls. While it is true that our giving budget mirrors our grocery budget for each month, it has also been far too long since we have worked to grow this number. I spend so much time looking at ways to slash expenses and beef up our savings and smash our debt. Instead of giving myself a pass because we give more than some, I am now inspired to optimize not just to do more for myself and my immediate family but to do more for as many people as I can.
So Tell Me…What is your favorite way to give back? When was the last time you learned something unexpected?
That’s awesome that you took the time out to volunteer. I have had a couple service jobs over the years, mostly when i was a teenager, in college and grad school and i completely agree. Physical labor sucks!
At least, you were doing it for a more altruistic purpose. I was just trying to buy the latest video game 🙁
Thanks for your service
I’m totally with you on the manual labor observation. I worked for a couple of years swinging a sledge hammer on the Alaska Railroad and credit that experience with me finishing school and ultimately becoming a lawyer. I saw what a lifetime of hard labor looks like and decided it didn’t look good on me. Thank goodness there are those who want that life. Imagine how hard it would be if there was no one who wanted that work (I’m trying hard not to make an immigration policy comment here – wrong venue).
On the issue of giving back, my wife is a teacher at a local high school here in Appalachia and we have a significant poverty problem in our region that often manifests itself as poor nutrition. Our two favorite ways of helping is working to solve that problem (how many backpacks have we filled? Who can count that high?), and the local humane society. Ours is a no-kill shelter and that requires a good bit of money and elbow grease to maintain.
Thanks Penny, for a thoughtful post.
“Want that life”? Interesting word choice…
I’ve had several charities over the years that were favorites of mine, beginning with a homeless shelter that provides education/training for people who need to not only find a place to live, but also to find work to sustain them. More recently, after watching so many natural disasters unfold around the world and here in the U.S., I started donating to the Red Cross. When people are devastated and exhausted, I’m grateful that the Red Cross swoops in immediately and gets to work, providing the basics that people need and making them feel less lost.
P.S. Penny, I hate to hear you say you’re not doing enough. So often in addition to working and raising children, which is already TWO jobs, women chastise themselves for not “doing more” or for not being able to perfectly juggle an insane schedule. It’s SO much pressure, and I really think those kinds of self-imposed unrealistic expectations and the associated feelings of guilt or inadequacy are counterproductive to the cause of female empowerment.
You blistered your fingers while giving from your heart and being a great example and leader for your students. If you heard a friend share this story, would you think she wasn’t doing enough? If you say yes, I’ll eat my spreadsheets this month.
Is it heartbreaking that there are starving children in the world? Yes. Did you do your best to help alleviate their pain and suffering? Yes. Does that make you wonderful? Yes. Let’s banish “enough” from the conversation.
Standing up and applauding loudly
In order to be successful in the military (a.k.a. promoted), you are encouraged to give your time to the base and the community surrounding it. I started volunteering at the local ER department and massive Food Bank of the Rockies organization to supplement my time at the office.
The Food Bank is ginormous and runs on the backs of its volunteers. They send out thousands and thousands of pounds of food every day to hungry families in the Denver Metro, all through the help of consistent volunteers. They are desperate for helpers, and I often forget to schedule monthly time because I get wrapped up in my own life and passions.
The truth is we could all do more. I love when you post about this because you are one of the few people in the blogosphere that tackles issues like this head on. So many of us could do more – especially people like me with zero children. You are awesome, and always killing it – as a mom, a teacher, and an advocate. You have a right to sit back and relax. It’s time for others to pick up the slack.
*standing ovation and clapping wildly for you*
Our friends in trades (and to be fair they tend to be at the heavy end of spectrum rather than, I dunno, electrician?) in many cases are already feeling the physical toll just 10 years in. Chunks of time off work on ACC due to injury/strain etc. What about at ages 40, 50, 60?
Many folks don’t realize it, but working fast food and retail where you have to stand on hard floors in cramped spaces is also physically hard on a body. That’s before having to clean the equipment, be careful of the grease, and make “food” quickly. So many of my full-time coworkers at those jobs had repetitive stress injuries.
Awesome post Penny, and great takeaways about manual labor and volunteering. It sounds like you guys were able to have a huge impact! I have a lot of memories working physically demanding minimum wage jobs. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to realize how far I’ve come and how blessed I am to be getting to work an office job for a salary. Paid holidays/vacations, sick days, getting to sit down? I never want to take it for granted, and it makes waking up for work each day a lot easier.
We volunteered serving food to the homeless recently and were reminded that we need to do it more often too! Thanks for the reminder.
You are a great role model Penny – you do so much and are very conscious of the bigger picture.
I also volunteer on occasion, but what I’ve gravitated towards is the realisation that it’s much more valuable to volunteer professional skills than to volunteer manual labour.
First time leaving a comment because this is one of my favorite charities! How can anyone object to donations of bulk foods? It’s so transparent and fills a true life or death need. The easiest way I give back with 0 cost to myself? You can pick a favorite charity when you shop on amazon and they’ll donate a very small percentage of the purchase price to the once charity you choose. You just have to shop through the smile.amazon portal and it will automatically send it to your charity. I proudly set mine up to be FMSC, but there are hundreds of charities to choose from. And a few pennies here and there adds up!
I don’t think volunteering time and money is about doing “enough.” It’s something that pulls you out of your bubble and changes your perspective. All day every day I’m thinking about my finances and purchases and long term plans for achieving my desired net worth. When I dontate I immerse myself in someone else’s world and I see it through their eyes. I get the benefit of becoming more grounded because I appreciate my gifts and privileges. I become less self centered and think about how even a small amount like 20$ that has zero effect on my life, can change the trajectory of someone else’s life. I break the rumination about the unexpected expense that ruined my budget and think about how the majority of the world can’t save anything after covering their basical needs. I don’t feel inadequate or behind comparing my net worth to those with millions on the net worth list because I see the millions of people with no net worth at all. Just the ability to have something to donate at all fills me with gratitude and humility. I don’t want to wait to experience these reflections and reminders once I have “enough.”
I owe you a more thoughtful reply (soon!), but I am so stoked that you commented. Thank you for that! And I’m glad you love this organization, too!
LX & Penny,
I hope you didn’t think I was suggesting that Penny or anyone should stop volunteering until she has more time, more money, or is in a different stage of life. If that’s how my comment came across, I sincerely regret it and apologize.
I only meant to express concern that part of the self talk for many women–who are contributing a ton at their work place, to their families, to their communities, and to the world–seems to be a focus on how they are not doing enough. I don’t want amazing young women to burn themselves out or to buy into society’s perception that it’s a given that they should “do it all” and then do more. I want female self talk to be kind and–dare I say it?–celebratory.
By the way, I am female.
I have been ambitious and driven all my life. (Now in my 40s) When I was young, my mom always worried I was doing too much and needed to give myself a break. Sometimes she was right. Reading Penny’s posts made me see my younger self, and I guess I channeled my mom. My comment was not intended as a criticism. Penny, I think you’re wonderful. Truly.
Absolutely LOVE this charity! It is based here in Raleigh so lots of packing opportunities throughout the year. We bring the kids a couple times a year for events and they love it. Definitely a great gateway to becoming more charitable because you see that impact per $ can be much greater than what people think “giving” is like (handing a few bucks to the beggar at the highway exit). Obsession with money, whether it is excessive spending or obsessive hoarding, is a sure path to an empty feeling in the end. The more comfortable you become with giving time and money to important causes the less money anxiety will affect you. Rise Against Hunger, Charity: Water, and Samaritan’s Purse are all highly rated, efficient, and impactful with minimal effort/cost.