A Day of Service

I didn't used to get Martin Luther King Jr Day off. I have no particular habits for this day (today), but last year I learned that many people take the day as a day of service. It's an awesome way to memorialize a man who worked so hard for peace. 

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?'" 
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This year, in my current job, I do get Martin Luther King Jr Day off, and I thought I would actually participate in a service project. You know, try out a new organization, meet new people, learn about a new issue.

I emailed my family and asked who would want to tag along, and through the United Way my Dad found a school that was looking for some help with a construction project and that sounded just right to him. My mom opted to go with him, which is lucky for this school, because the two of them are like a construction machine when they get going. I ended up not being able to participate, but they stopped by afterwards to let me know how it went (and get some help on another project my Dad is working on for me. Thanks Dad). They spent 8 hours (!) climbing ladders, sawing framing and generally building windows. Awesome. 16 hours added to the thermometer... and just like that the 70% mark was crossed.

I still want to find an excise to join someone else's service project, but in the meantime, I've got another date for dinner at Friend's of Youth, an both AWIS and HiveBio events on the calendar.

We just surpased $20,000

Just when I was starting to wonder if I could get the focus to finish out this project, I am feeling quite renewed. My mom reminded me about all the OTHER giving that has taken place in the last month (who can resist the $10 bag of groceries that Safeway just gives to the foodbank. It's so easy!), I made a big ol' pot of chili for the shelter, and I spent Sunday in the lab getting ready for some very exciting classes and Voila! $20,000 mark.

Actually, today's total is $20,206.

What's nice about a project like this is that there are milestones. It's trackable, and fairly obvious to me that progress is being made. Big numbers just keep rolling past! There is less than a third of the project left.

I am, perhaps, ready to let go of the illusion that this project might ... how do I put this?... make sense to anyone else. I've had a hard time explaining why I am doing this, what I am doing, how other people should do this with me. The number ($30,000) is arbitrary. My particular way of measuring it is arbitrary. I've come to realize that I'm not the sort of person who is going to organize pub crawls, charity events, or major work parties where I need buy-in from a lot of people anyhow. Although it's not what I expected at the outset, it's actually pretty wild to see what a big difference a relatively small number of people can make without a lot of major sacrifice. No one is $20,000 in the whole. My dad has become a regular blood donor. My brother has a standing tutoring appointment at a middle school. My friends were easily convinced to run some charity 5Ks with me. I got to spend some evenings cooking with my mom. And good work was done.

 I'm trying to think of something cool to do on MLK Day this year. I like the notion of a day of service, and I'm hoping I can find an excuse to try something new. More updates as that comes together.

Re-resolving to Meet This Goal

Being 30, I'm starting to warm up to the parts of myself that aren't going to change. I tend to think of it more in the context of recognizing my strengths, but these come hand in hand with weaknesses. For example, I'm a starter. I love starting new projects, getting new things off the ground and the experience of diving in to new experiences. It makes me a bit bold about novelty. But in contrast, I am not such a great finisher. The top of my desk (and most of my office) is littered with projects I have started, that I have sunk too much time on to completely abandon, although I have quite clearly done just that.

I knew this about myself going in to this crazy project. I was particularly attracted to the craziness of it. But I also knew that at some point I'd get far enough along that I could see the end coming along, and just sorta bail, confident in the knowledge that I would get there eventually. Id join a few groups, and then forget to track, and... well, whatever. To prevent this behavior, I was looking for things that I could engage in regularly, to help me keep up the momentum.  Dinner for Friend's of Youth has been one of those. 5Ks were another. But... I've kinda lost momentum on the other aspects. Finding small ways to stay engaged (and tracking them), getting my friends and family to help with these things, and putting it on the blog has fallen by the way side a bit. 

This is in part because I'm busy. But even more so, it is probably because I need to find volunteer activities that are a good fit for the kind of life I want to be leading. That was (supposed to be) at the core of this project, that I could use this as an excuse to get involved in my community in a way that feels natural.

And maybe I should get a bit more honest with myself about the life I'm realistically going to lead, instead of the life I think I should lead. Let me be honest, the work I am doing with HiveBio, which is very cool, and exciting, and novel is SO hard on me. It turns out, I HATE being in charge. I stress out about decisions, I'm reluctant to tell people what to do, and I would rather talk about venereal disease than money. These are all tasks I'm called on to do fairly often in my role. I should probably figure out how I can transition to instead doing something I'm good at, so I'll feel better about the work. Moral of the story- don't kill yourself doing something you suck at when it would be better for everyone if you did something you were good at instead.

As I enter the new year though, I don't just want to be shirking my responsibilities and waiting for this thermometer to rise on it's own. Instead, I'm going to get back to blogging, which requires me to have something worth blogging about. I'll be getting back to bugging my friends and family to helping me raise the last $10,000 on the thermometer, hopefully before I turn 31. That's something to feel good about.

Happy New Year!

In the Spirit of the Season

How ironic that my most recent post was about having more time than money. Long story short, I quickly got a new job, and in addition to learning the ropes at the new gig, my volunteer work with HiveBio has been taking up a lot of my mental energy. And then it was the holidays.

This year, my family decided to draw names for gift giving, which reduced the number of adults we needed to get gifts for tremendously. This, all by itself, is awesome, since I didn't have shopping anxiety to contend with. But even better, most of my family members requested donations for Christmas. How cool is that?  So, I donated to the Red Cross for my grandmother, and Northwest Harvest for my mother-in-law. I drew my brother's name, and donated to Child's Play (an organization that provides toys and video games to kids in hospitals). He donated to Northwest Harvest AND Friends of Youth. My sister-in-law also donated to Northwest Harvest on behalf of my mom. By my estimate, about $400 were gifted to charity for the holidays.

And while I haven't been blogging, the thermometer keeps inching it's way up. We surpassed the 60% mark, and are approaching $20,000!

Update: More time than money

When I first started this project, I had this real desire to get involved in my community. I'd been living in Kirkland for a year, and I pretty much don't run in to people I know there. Maybe this is nostalgia from growing up in a small town, but I couldn't feel like my surroundings were familiar until the faces in it were too. Of course, what counts as 'my community' seems to be in flux a lot. The lab is across the lake, my old office was in Queen Ann, my house is in Totem Lake. Some of the things I have been working on have really helped a lot. For starters, getting my family and friends involved with me has been really cool, whether we've been running 5Ks or making meals. Learning more about these causes has also helped me to feel grounded in this project. I don't think of those punks at the mall as punks, I think of them as homeless kids who need my help. My homeless kids.

As always, having a real life does get in the way of my fantasy. This is in part because I don't have infinite time to be attending meetings, meeting with people and building relationships, even when the cause really matters. I've been to various Friends of Youth Offices several times, but I 1) don't know anyone's name there, and 2) don't run in to those people elsewhere. I don't know the names of a single person who I've served dinner to. This is fair, considering how little time I actually spend there. The point is, now that we've passed the halfway mark, and I've got a bit of momentum and some time to think about what this whole crazy affair is about, I feel like the real, personal connection is still missing.

This might be because opening the lab took a heap of time, and a lot of effort that involved either working alone in the lab, or sitting at home on my computer. I can rationalize that I think this is important, long term work. But man, I'd really like to spend more of my time with other people. Another crunch on my time has been working. I can't pretend I was working more than most full time people, but with an hour commute on both ends, it really takes a bit out of the day.

The update that I am choosing to view as good news for now is that I have completed my contract, so I suddenly have a lot more free-time. Yes, I will be spending the bulk of it looking for my next job, but the last time I was looking for a job, I felt terribly isolated and unimportant. Making phone calls and submitting job applications that never get answered can do that to a person. These are both feelings that charity work can help to alleviate, so I'm hoping to dedicate some of my time to moving along this lofty goal while I have more time than money. This can hopefully help me to get in touch with the people in my community, which will help me to feel like I belong here.

HiveBio Moves

Over the weekend, HiveBio relocated. If you have not ever moved a lab, you may not be aware of the vast numbers of weird shaped, fragile objects that tend to get deeply packed into a lab.  The old lab space was about 300 sq feet, and filled every inch of a 17 foot uHaul. When you move a lab, you always start thinking- 'this will be easy, everything is basically already in boxes,' and this slowly progresses into 'how are there so. many. boxes?!'  I knew this was coming. I also know that our executive board (ie, the people who would actually be doing the move) was only half available on the day of the move. We needed more hands, and preferable some with burly biceps attached. So, I called on some old friends.

I sent along a very pathetic request for help to my high school friends who live in the area, and JJ and Paul were both unable to invent an excuse and actually offered to help. They probably had no idea what they were getting into- from their arrival to the time we left the new lab space, they spent 7 hours hauling boxes out of the old space, into the the new building (down 3 flights of stairs) and into the new space. By the time the last box was unloaded, I felt like I'd been holding them hostage. Seriously, "I owe you a beer" does not even begin to cover it.

Moving the lab had been a major source of anxiety for the entire organization- the new space is great: great location, great space, great opportunity. But we needed to quickly transition from the old space to the new space AND get functional so we can start paying rent like responsible citizens. Multiple trips, storing boxes over night in the truck, we don't have time or finances for any of this. In my mind, this was spiraling into a number of other tragic situations- the truck gets impounded for illegally parking too long while we try to fill it, all the contents are destroyed by poor packing in the drive across town, the truck gets stopped and harassed for looking like the other definition of "mobile lab" ... But, none of this happened. We were inhumanly efficient. We didn't even have to stand around and shout at each other (another common tactic I've seen in moves). It was awesome.  I'm terribly grateful to both Paul, JJ and of course my dear husband for showing up and blowing a beautiful Saturday to help me bring science to the people.

And, and... since the move actually happened, we get to announce our opening party! I love parties! Please join us at the space Oct 18 to see what HiveBio is all about.

Another reason I am so grateful... After this weekend, we smashed the 50% mark! Since we had a multi-person multiplier for the day, the thermometer LEAPed up for 52% of the goal! Unbelievable!

Almost half way there!

As I expected, finding a job is cutting into my time for planning and executing wild, philanthropic adventures. But the thermometer keeps ticking along regardless. In the last few weeks, my dear Karen AND my Dad donated blood without me even pestering them to death about it!  Saving lives and eating cookies!

In a month where I have had more money to leverage than time, I was able to support several friend's philanthropic efforts, including Paramita's Alzheimer's Walk, Karl's AIDS walk, and Ian's Half marathon for his local children's hospital. It's been really fun to get involved in some of my own walks this summer, but I also know that it can be awesome to have people help make your fundraising goals.  And all of those are great causes!

I've also been chugging away at my 'regular' volunteer activities. (More meatballs to the shelter this week) In the next month, I will have used up my current contract, so I have a suspicion that next month will be structured the opposite: more time than money.  We'll see if I can figure out the best way to leverage that for some Good.

And let's just take a look at that thermometer. It is SO CLOSE to 50%. Want to help me push it over the edge? I am looking for help for a particular project this weekend, please let me know if you are free and in the Seattle area Saturday.