What motivates you?
I was making my annual visit to a local summer picnic a couple of weekends ago, ready to gamble away my pocket full of dimes, when I spied a peculiar site. Were my eyes playing tricks on me, or was that one of my “non-volunteering” type friends heartily serving up kiddie prizes at the duck pond booth? What strange collision of world events has brought this person into the realm of giving back, of service to his fellow man, of yelling like a crazed carnival barker when a kid wins a cartoon pencil?
The answer? Free beer.
Was I shocked? No. Disappointed? Absolutely not. There are a thousand reasons why people volunteer, some may be nobler than others, but the bottom-line is that they are volunteering in the first place. Even better, I’d like to think that the free beer got him in the door and next year he might even think of doing it for the sheer enjoyment of a kid’s smile. He was obviously having a great time creating a fun environment for the kids and on top of all of that, raising money for a charitable cause. I think he was hooked.
Not too many days after the picnic our community was slammed by the August 4th flash flood that destroyed or heavily damaged many homes in the hardest hit areas. In the days following the event I started to encounter another type of volunteer, the one motivated not by beer, but by hope. The member organizations of VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) http://www.nvoad.org/ are made up of thousands of volunteers who help with the response and recovery of disasters like the flood we had. These volunteers are helping clean-up raw sewage and black mold. They are ripping up ruined carpets and water-soaked furniture. What motivates them? I think it is their desire to restore hope.
What motivates you? Is it something other than beer or hope? It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that you find a way to help another, support a cause you believe in, and do it as often as you can.
By K. Thompson