I’ve volunteered my time, money, and energy in the past. I worked with the Walt Whitman Community School, a now defunct place for at risk GLBTQ youth to get an education, and chaired the DFW Gayla Prom where GLBTQ youth can go to have a prom experience in a safe environment. Both were great organizations and I have many good memories of my work with them. I feel like I helped someone out. I did also feel like I was over-volunteering and had no free time. When the school shut down I eventually pulled out of both organizations.

Certainly all the free time since has been nice, but I always feel like I should be doing something for others. But part of the problem has been what organization to join? I decided I have only so much time I can spare to give before I begin to feel like the effort is impacting me too much. Selfish perhaps, but honest. And there are just too many good causes, so many people who need help. I wanted to do something that would have an impact in the time I could give to a cause I really believed in. See, that was another issue, the WWCS was a good idea, but it just never really got off the ground so you had tons of people pouring their hearts out and wearing themselves out barely making it happen.

Well, I finally decided to bite the bullet and I’m applying to a be a Big Brother as part of Big Brothers, Big Sisters. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re a volunteer organization that matches up adults with young boys and girls who are typically in low income families, have trouble in school, and may have problems at home. The “Big” sibling is there to talk to, do things with, perhaps help out with school work, etc. I’d be interested to hear if any of you have worked with BBBS before and what you think of it.

The statistics are really impressive on how much of an impact a “Big” has on at-risk youth: they do better in school, are less likely to do drugs, etc. The vision of BBBS and the impact their work has is very much in line with my views on society: start when they’re young. I truly believe that if every child had a nurturing environment growing up and completed a high school education and obtained a job with a decent living wage, that so many of our issues would diminish: poverty, intolerance, urban crime, drug use, illiteracy, etc. These educated youth would have more stable families, which would beget another generation of people who were just as or more stable and integrated into society. A good education and multi-faceted help for the poor seems to be the solution to ameliorate so many of the issues plaguing modern society.

I don’t expect to solve the world’s problems by doing this, but perhaps I can help just one youth end up with a better life. That’s enough for me.