As the Holiday season comes upon us, we all look forward to spending more time with our friends and families, reflecting on what we’re grateful for, and thinking about how we can help others share in the spirit of the season.
We might donate canned goods to a local food drive. We might open our wallets to a local shelter or aid organization. Maybe we’ll even spend a little bit of time down at the soup kitchen serving meals. Regardless of how we choose to give back, many of us choose to celebrate the holiday season by doing good in our communities.
What Gail Page learned, however, is that it doesn’t take much to make a difference all year round, and that doing so has some cool personal benefits, too. Gail’s aha moment came when she realized that volunteering at a local food aid center not only allowed her to help others, but brought her closer to her own son, Ian.
The experience began two years ago when Gail was looking for a way to spend more quality time with Ian. She thought volunteering would be a good experience for him, but needed to find something appropriate for a nine year-old.
“I wanted to find a place where there was a more diverse environment for Ian, but it had to be right for his age,” Gail explained.
So when she first came upon the Samaritan Center, a Syracuse organization that serves hot meals to those that need them in the community, she knew she had to give it a shot.
“The person I originally spoke to was so energetic about the place,” she says, “and it means a lot to them to have kids down there.”
It immediately became clear that Gail and Ian had found the right place. The Center “is so much more than just a meal,” says Gail. “The staff, volunteers and guests at the center make up a very unique and diverse family.”
Starting off volunteering every other week, the mother-son duo soon found themselves so inspired by the power of the organization – with only six staff members supporting hundreds of volunteers feeding thousands of guests – that they began coming in for two hours every Monday.
The new family that Gail and Ian found quickly began to feel like a second home, as the pair developed close friendships with those at the Center, and the guests’ triumphs became their own. They were making an unmistakable difference in people’s lives.
“Just recently,” Gail recalls, “I was at the Center and one of the guys came up to me and said: ‘I can’t believe this, but I don’t think I’m going to need to come back here for a long time. I’m almost back on my feet, and as soon as I get back I’m coming here and volunteering.’ It was amazing, his goal was to come back and help. He saw beyond himself, and we see that time and time again.”
But Gail and Ian’s aha moment wasn’t just giving back to the community; it was the realization that doing so brought their own relationship closer.
“This was really the first time volunteering one-on-one, even for me, which made it even cooler doing it with my son,” Gail says. “Whatever we experienced, we experienced first together. We had the same thoughts, and the conversations on the way home were priceless. Whether talking about poverty or homelessness or any subject that might come up, it’s on a different level what he’s become aware of.”
Gail fondly remembers that “the day Ian told me volunteering at the Samaritan Center was the best thing we've ever done together is a day I will never forget - the day I knew we landed at exactly the right place.”
What Gail hopes people take away from her aha moment is that not only is volunteering an easy way to make a difference in the community, but that it can bring immeasurable positive change to our own lives as well.
“Especially with kids, but with adults as well, you can learn so much,” she explains. “Two hours of the week is so little time, but what you get back you can never repay. I truly believe that we, the volunteers, are the lucky ones.”
Ian, now 11, is proof that there is no limit to the number of creative ways to give back. The family has asked their neighbors to grow a few extra plants each season, and Ian collects them to help feed guests at the Samaritan Center. In charge of 150 pounds of vegetables, Ian already understands the impact that only a little effort can have.
“We don’t just help them, they’ve really changed my life,” notes the sixth-grader.
So however we decide to give back this holiday season, let’s remember Gail and Ian’s aha moment and consider making volunteering a year-round event. Pledging just a small effort can make a big difference in people’s lives – including our own.
See Gail and Ian’s aha moment video here.
If you could go back to school and do it all over again, what would you change?
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Her aha moment inspired a journey to re-educate herself, on her own terms.
Melia decided to go back to school to live the experience she missed the first time around. Thus, “Reschool Yourself” was born. She set out to spend a year re-doing her education, chronicling her adventure on her blog.
There are many ways that people cope with great personal loss. None of them are easy. But sometimes, from great tragedy comes great triumph. When Siobhan lost her baby to a miscarriage, she didn't know what to do. In hopes of relieving her pain, she traveled to Africa searching for a way to help others. What she found was a passion to change the world.
Hollywood has this way of conditioning us to expect certain situations to play out in somewhat predetermined ways. The start of a six-alarm fire, for example, is often marked by frantic, repeated screams of "FIRE!" followed by the requisite pounding on doors and panicked pleas to get out of the burning house.
It's only natural, therefore, that on June 8, 2000, at 3:20 in the morning, when Kristin S. of San Francisco heard her housemate state, "fire," in a somewhat monotone, practically deadpanned voice, she first reacted with dazed confusion. While she tried to separate reality from dream, Kristin's windows exploded and the curtains in her room became engulfed in flames. Kristin wasn't dreaming…and she certainly wasn't on any Hollywood soundstage.
Could an aha moment have the power to change entire generations? Wendy's appears to be on its way. For this, she has her nine-year-old son, Reed, to thank.
Wendy's aha moment took place on the way to a local bowling alley, where they were heading to set up for Reed's sixth birthday party. The night before, the family had watched a TV show about stray animals. From the back seat, Reed asked his mother a question that brought a tear to Wendy's eye.
"He asked, ‘Mommy, is it okay if I ask my friends to bring donations for the homeless animals instead of getting birthday gifts?" Wendy explained. "It was such a heartfelt, generous thing. Thankfully, I was in the front seat and he couldn't see me tearing up."
