100 Volunteer Hours

Today I spent the afternoon in some volunteer work I needed to catch up on. I am the editor for the Seattle Association for Women in Science (AWIS) newsletter, which means that at least quarterly, I have to sit down and edit some documents, exchange flurries of emails and get some files organized. It's not unlike my real job (as a writer), and it's nice to be able to schedule it for when I have time. What I'm getting at here, is this was a fairly routine experience.

And as I was updating the totals on my spreadsheet (which I love doing), I noticed it updated to 104 hours. That's a lot of time! And since what I really love about the spreadsheet are the metrics, let me break it down for you. From the totals on the thermometer (currently $7,345.27), which is combined hours and dollars, about half of that is hours, and half dollars. About 57 of those hours, I've been involved in (I will track combined hours for something Matt & I or myself and others do, so it's less lines on the spreadsheet).

Just for the record, I think we can compare the amount of volunteer time I've racked up this year to the amount of volunteer time I did last year, which was basically only my work with AWIS. Or ~4 hours a month. In the 5 months since I started tracking, I've basically doubled my own efforts, and some how talked others into matching my volunteer efforts.  Go us!

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That being said, having spent a sunny Saturday in my office, I've got to get serious about finding some outdoor volunteer opportunities. And it looks like the pub crawl is going to fall through- but I'd like to get a group together for some type of volunteer project: trail maintenance? flash mob at the blood bank? 5K? I'm not sure, so if you have ideas, let me know.

Dinner Donor

Just dropping a line here to say that I did take dinner to the Landing last night. Things worked out that I didn't have much help (except for a clutch moment where Matt helped me slice peaches so I could get a crisp into the oven before the lasagna). Since it was pouring buckets, they were expecting a pretty full house, and warm lasagna seemed like the right thing to bring. While it's neat to feel like I can cook for 15 people by myself, it was way more fun when I had help.

There were lots of staff hanging around at my delivery (there was a basketball game on?), and I am super curious about who these people are. They always act like I'm bringing them something really special- like it's the best stuff they've seen all week. By the time dinner is loaded into my car, I'm always very self conscious: Four lasagnas and 24 rolls. What do normal people eat for dinner? I'm sure they've been told that little bit of enthusiasm makes volunteers like me really happy to come by. What can I say, it works.

Another HUGE Milestone- 20%

Big news- we hit 20% of the goal last month.  That means that in May, we did 10%.  THat's huge! If we can sustain 10% of the goal every month- we'll be done in EIGHT MONTHS.

Of course, there were some (great!) reasons that May was so strong that may not be true through the summer. Seattle Big Give encouraged me to give away a fair part of my donation budget early. My brother's volunteer gig with Austin Partners in Education is on summer break (thanks Noel!). There were Mother's Day gifts in donations.  So, we gotta get/stay serious about keeping up this momentum through the summer.  I'll be looking for some trail work myself, and some more 5Ks.  But mostly GIANT, gushy Thank YOUs to everyone who has helped push the thermometer up this high, this quick!  It's awesome!

The Boring Part

My desk is positively littered with very sweet notes providing receipts for charitable giving. This is cool. In years past, I would have recycled these.  But I think there is a good chance I might make a charitable level of giving this year that warrants a tax deduction.  So I'll be keeping these.  Hopefully not all on my desk.

Busy Day- Go charity!

A long weekend mean lots of time to get involved in the community. We kicked off the day with a 5K that was benefiting the Special Olympics.  We can talk about how slow my time was, or we can talk about how awesome it was to see families encouraging this Down's Syndrome kids on the same course- or how cool it was when the lady pushing her cerebral palsy son crossed the finish line.  It was a pretty great 5K.

Figure 1: Delicious Pancake Image stolen from here, the KITH website

And THEN, we went for the KITH/Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast. And I say "we" to mean not just myself and husband, but his bestie and wife and kiddo. We got the multiplier! The awesome thing about going to a pancake breakfast with a 4 year old is the access to high quality pancakes. Sure, we all got yummy pancakes, but the kid got Mickey Mouse Pancakes- with a smile, how do you even do that?- a doggy pancake and a BIKE pancake.  Kiwanis seriously knows how to make their pancakes; I'll be watching out for opportunities to eat and support good causes with pancakes.

Seattle GiveBIG

I'm a bit late to talking about this, but May 15 is the Seattle Foundation's GiveBIG campaign.  They collect matching from generous donors, and then connect civilians like me to local and regional nonprofits.  On May 15, any funds donated get MATCHED by the Seattle Foundation.

And someday, when it's not so late, I plan to go back and use the resources on the Seattle Foundation site to help me find a good environmental organization to support. They do nice due diligence on organizations, as part of supplying grant 

I cashed out my PayPal Account (where my contracting money goes) to make $500 in donations to some of my favorite charities. I gave money to the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance (on behalf of my husband), Friends of Youth, Kirkland Interfaith Transitional Housing, IDRI and the Puget Sound Blood Bank. And just like that, the thermometer ticked up by $1,000. Thanks Seattle Foundation!

So far, (as of 9:00 PM) 10 MILLION DOLLARS have been raised through this effort. That is stunning.

Share the Love!

I took dinner to the Friends of Youth shelter at the Landing earlier this week. The best part was being able to share that doing-good feeling with my mom and grandma, who happily joined in to help out.  (Also, cooking with my mom seems to reduce that feeling of existential kitchen crisis, where I wonder, "Why am I here? Do I even know what cooking is??")

I knew it would be more fun, and less chore like to have my Mom helping in the kitchen. But I was surprised by how good I felt about sharing the experience.  I always feel really good about taking dinner over there- it's something really tangible that I am doing for my community. It's really nice to share that feeling with someone I like, and to feel like we are the sort of people who do good things in the community.

I was planning to write a post about how I want to look for more ways to share that good feeling, but my folks beat me to the punch on Mother's Day.  While we were sitting down to a Mother's Day brunch, my Dad turned to his mom (my saintly grandmother), and said, "Your mother's day gift is a donation to Donors Choose."  I couldn't have been happier if the gift had been for me.  Or if I actually got to read the books that my grandmother picked to buy for a local classroom.

I think I'm starting to understand what they say about good deeds multiplying.

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Have you noticed our totals?  Just inching past the $4000 mark (!)

Now would be an awesome time to sign up for the Crawl for a Cause- raise money for charity, and hang out with me for my birthday.  It's going to be grand!

I'm donating blood this week. I'll try to write an update about the importance of blood donation, but schedule yours today!