Well, I tried but found I couldn't do it. They advertised for volunteers at the Jarrett Prairie Center here in Byron. It's part of the Byron Forest Preserve. The job was to help out with filling bags for pre school kids, making up some craft projects, collating sorting etc. When I got there, I found boxes of maybe 1000 thin backpacks to be filled with little things for Halloween giveaways. They have around 1000 kids coming for Halloween trick or treating. The little, teeny, tiny, prizes were placed in piles on a med. sized round table. We had to pick up a bag, open it, and walk around the table putting one of each thing in the bag. Sounds simple enough...right? Round and round.....round and round.....round and round....I think that I was the oldest one there and after an hour... I was getting tired. I just had to keep up with these people...felt funny saying I would like to sit down. Then when my back started hurting again...I just stopped. They gave me a big box of bags from last year to stuff in the new bags. I could do this sitting down. There were 5 of us there doing this easy job. We had a break for a donut and coffee....and I heard about volunteering on Halloween, handing out the bags to all the kids.Then back to filling the bags this morning. Finally they agreed that we had filled enough and could go home. I was so relieved...almost ran out the door. Next month there will be more Halloween things to do and then on to Thanksgiving, Christmas and then Easter. When I signed up, I thought it would be a little more interesting and didn't realize that there would be so much physical work to do...such as walking around the small round table. I've searched and searched for some volunteer work that I could manage. I would like to get out with people and do something of value. I'll continue the search...I know I'll find something.
Balisha
3 comments:
I'm sure I would have been right there with you five sitting down. I tried to help our daughter in the church nursery a few years ago. I learned I can no longer walk, hold and jiggle a baby very long. Finally she looked at me and said, "Mother, is your back hurting?" I replied, "No more than usual." At which point one of the other (younger) helpers hopped over and took the child. I felt like crying.
Collating in that way is exhausting and having done it have to say boring too!!
I guess we learn what we can and can't do as we grow older. What we think we can do is often just a fleeting wish. Barbee...I felt like crying too, when I couldn't keep up with these other women.
Balisha
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