Volunteer lessons

The kids still have more than a week of school left, counting today, but I feel as if my part of the school year is over, because my last volunteer commitment ended today. As one of two room parents for Holly’s third grade classroom, I presented the teacher with a scrapbook (ably assembled by the other room parent – a fact that should be obvious for anyone who knows me and knows what the results would look like if I were left in charge of assembling a scrapbook) and a gift card redeemable at a number of Boston restaurants.

Both of the kids had a fabulous year at school. In third and sixth grade, respectively, they learned a lot, earned impressive grades, fostered new and existing interests, bonded with teachers, and matured in their relationships with their friends. So we’ll look back on the 2010/11 school year as an overwhelmingly positive experience, for them and for us adults.

But if I am to be honest, I know I didn’t earn nearly as good grades as the kids did, even though my grades are strictly hypothetical. I took on too many of the wrong kind of roles, and in a way it put a little bit of a damper on the year for me. Not enough of a damper to keep me from being happy overall, but just enough to serve as a nearly constant reminder that I’m not always realistic about where my talents lie.

As the school year began, or even earlier, over the summer, I was already experiencing a nagging anxiety that I’d made poor choices in terms of what I’d agreed to do. Along with room parenting, I was once again coordinating the school library volunteer program. I was also heading publicity for the sixth grade Spaghetti Supper and chairing the Walk-to-School Committee, whose flagship event was a walk-to-school day in which we arrange for crossing guards, “walking car pools,” media taking pictures of walkers, and prizes for all. I’d agreed to be one of three Sunday school teachers rotating duties throughout the year and one of three church “greeters” responsible for welcoming people as they arrived on Sunday mornings. I was also leading an ad hoc committee at church intended to evaluate multiple aspects of our performance as a worship community. Late in the winter, I took on the job of heading up publicity for the spring house tour. And when June came, I was in charge of the faculty/staff appreciation luncheon. That event took place just two days ago.

It wasn’t quite the right mix of jobs for me. Even though most of these efforts came with plenty of gratitude and praise from participants and onlookers, I was grudging about several aspects of what I had to do. I’m not a good Sunday school teacher for a number of reasons. I should have recruited more help for the two publicity committees I served on. The walk-to-school day was successful but culminated with the committee essentially dissolving because we felt that our mission – to get more school-aged children to walk or bike to school, and to ensure they could do so safely -- was unworkable. Tuesday’s faculty/staff luncheon worked out well, but it would have been even better if I hadn’t been quite so hesitant in going after contributions.

So I’m ending the school year feeling a little bit worn out: not resentful of all the things I was asked to do but doubtful of my own judgment. It just seems that I need a better perspective on where my strengths lie.

Of course, some of my volunteer responsibilities worked out well. Although Holly’s teacher ribbed me at times for being such a delegator, always sending out emails to find chaperones for field trips and never actually attending a field trip myself, every classroom need was met. The library program ran smoothly, with volunteers happily covering the shifts they’d asked for. The church evaluation committee delivered a well-received report to the congregation.

But I still think there are lessons to be learned. I still think at some point I need to figure out how to be more honest with myself about what I can reasonably do and which efforts I’d be better off assisting someone else with rather than heading up myself.

And that’s fine, because I’ll have plenty of opportunities to improve on my volunteer skills. Yesterday, I agreed to coordinate next spring’s faculty/staff luncheon; while it’s still all fresh in my mind, I want to think about how I can make it better. I’ll do the library volunteer scheduling again in the upcoming school year, and I’ve expressed my willingness to be a room parent again if needed.

Plus there are always new challenges. Tonight there’s a meeting of the sixth grade parents to discuss volunteer jobs for the class play. I’m trying to think about whether something different would be a good change for me: assisting rather than leading a committee, perhaps, or doing something not as closely aligned with my professional roles as publicity.

Since there’s no end of requests, there’s no end of chances for improvement. This year was a learning experience. Yes, I made some mistakes in what I agreed to take on. But I learned from them. Next year I’ll try to put experience into action.

It's only a minor problem -- but I'm not sure I can solve it

My father is fond of saying that some problems have no solutions. Right now I’m facing one of them. It’s not a really big problem. It’s just a challenge that I don’t think can be successfully met. And yet to even say those words sounds so somehow un-American. Doesn’t everything from my education to my country of birth to my religion inform me that challenges exist to be met? Am I really ready to say there are cases when simply giving up is the right thing to do?

To make a long story short, last spring our school’s parent volunteer association decided that rather than having Walk-to-School Day be a twice-a-year event, we should form a Walk-to-School Committee whose mission would be “to make walking or biking to school a safe and regular habit.” In other words, something that happens all the time, not just on two designated days that include raffle prizes and lots of ceremony. And they asked me to chair this committee.

I pulled off a bang-up launch. On October 5, despite impending rain, nearly 200 kids in Carlisle’s elementary and middle school grades walked or biked to school. The grades with the highest and second-highest rate of participation won cool prizes. Fourteen volunteers staffed the crosswalks to ensure safe passage.

But the event’s triumphs, ironically enough, may have turned out to also be its downfall. As successful as it was deemed to be, I’m now stuck with the suspicion that it takes three months of planning, $50 worth of prizes and fourteen volunteers to make it possible for kids to walk to school.

My committee wants to make Walk-to-School Day a weekly event. And we can do it without the prizes and heraldry. It’s the fourteen volunteers that I can’t seem to get past. Carlisle simply isn’t a walking town. Our town doesn’t have traffic lights: walkers are strictly at the mercy of the judgment of drivers. The new footpath system is wonderful as far as making it possible to walk somewhere other than in the roadway on the main streets, but the cars that pass through the center aren’t expecting to stop for crossing foot traffic. The side streets have neither sidewalks nor footpaths, and many of them don’t even have adequate shoulders, at least adequate enough to shelter pedestrians during rush hour.

I put out an appeal for adult volunteers to help with a weekly Walk-to-School plan, but the response was scanty, and I can’t say I blame anyone. Most parents of school-aged children I know are already booked to the hilt with volunteer activities, whether or not they also hold down full-time jobs that might prevent them from being available at the walk-to-school hour. Some of the town’s older residents who do not have young children in the schools provided a great deal of help at our Walk-to-School launch, but I can’t blame them either for not wanting to make this a weekly commitment.

So I’m stuck with how to admit that I might not be able to do this. It would be a much better story – and a much more traditional one – if I rose up against the odds and showed that a safe walk-to-school program could be done. If the naysayers were someone other than me, over whom I could triumph in the face of their skepticism. The problem is the task is mine – and I’m also the one most skeptical.

It puts me in a problematic position. I’m not much of a hero if I say “Sorry, I tried to lead this effort but it’s not going to work.” That surely won’t put me in the annals of American mythology. After all, my friend Deborah faced down fifteen years of obstacles simply to get Carlisle’s footpath system installed. It doesn’t make me look very impressive if I can’t take the project the next step and ensure that they are used.

I haven’t given up yet, and at the same time, I see no evidence that I can make this work. In the end, I may have to be the anti-hero: the one who admits that sometimes a plan just can’t be pulled off. I don’t want that to be my role, and I’m not willing to give up yet. But it may be that Dad is right: some problems do not have solutions. As un-American as that may sound, it just may be true.

Walk to School Day deemed a success!

It was mostly coincidence, and partly just end-of-school-year pileup, that led to my being responsible for two large-scale events this week: the Teacher Appreciation Luncheon on Tuesday and Walk-to-School Day yesterday. Now both are behind me, and I can breathe a huge sigh of relief and hope that I never again have a stress headache like the one I had on Monday evening as I looked ahead to these two events.

With the luncheon behind me, I turned my focus to yesterday’s event, which was a bit more of a challenge. Within the past couple of years, our town has installed half-mile-long footpaths along the four major roads leading into the center of town. This enables us to take part in the statewide Safe Routes to School program, which sponsors a semi-yearly Walk to School Day. Our school has done Walk to School Day four times before – twice in the fall and twice in the spring – and my enduring memories of it are dance music blasting on the school plaza, ticker tape parades, and raffles in which kids won things like iPod Nanos. I agreed to chair the event this time around if the focus could be on walking rather than on prizes and rallies. Simplifying and omitting most of the hoopla, my co-chair and I put our efforts behind promoting the idea that we would provide chaperoned walks along all four footpaths, with designated drop-off spots, adult guides, and help at the crosswalks.

The problem was that I overpromised, a little. While it was a good idea, we didn’t get the volunteer response I expected. I scrounged up four adults willing to lead the walks along the respective footpaths, and at the last minute we found two more to staff the checkpoints at the entrance to the school (it turns out the Safe Routes program requires us to track how many walkers we have in each grade, so the checkpoints and the raffle tickets have a purpose in terms of collecting that information), but I didn’t have enough adults to assist at every crosswalk (our police department was willing to help, but it’s a small force and they couldn’t guarantee coverage everywhere we needed it), and I knew the guided walks would be a lot safer if there was more than one adult with each group.

So I greeted the day with a minor sense of dread. I’d set up and publicized an event that I couldn’t follow through with one hundred percent, and that’s not a good feeling. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that if any child had an unfortunate encounter with a car during Walk to School Day, it would be on my head.

Yet the event worked out well. Dozens of families showed up for it, which surprised me a little. When my seven-year-old and I reached the parking lot of the ice cream stand which was designated as our group’s starting point, I was relieved to see so many adults who planned to join us, and Holly was happy to see two of her good friends there. I expected to walk with her, but a five-year-old named Noah grabbed my hand and didn’t let go until we reached the door to the kindergarten building. And Noah was a slow walker. So Holly had her own walk with her friends.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and no one demanded to know where the amplified dance hits, pep squads or armfuls of swag from previous Walk-to-School Day events were. The kids and the adults alike seemed happy simply to have participated. Better still, later in the day I learned that even though my older child, who is on an earlier schedule than Holly, had planned to take the bus instead of walk, when he reached the end of our driveway, he saw two friends passing by and they called to him to join them, so he ended up walking as well.

With my two dozen young charges – including the sluggish but sweet Noah – delivered safely to school, I put on my headphones and looked forward to running home by myself, full of relief that the morning seemed to have been safe and fun for all involved. As I reached my car, which was parked at the ice cream stand, the manager came out to inquire about my parents and say he hadn’t seen them in a while. Then he told me to wait because he wanted to give me some ice cream for them and some for me. I couldn’t quite imagine eating an ice cream cone at 9:30 in the morning, nor did I know how I’d take cones back to my parents, but I dutifully waited, and soon he emerged from the ice cream stand not with cones but with two half-gallon containers. I took them home and put it in the freezer to take over to my parents later in the day.

Four hours later, alone in my house and still buoyed by the success of the event, I had an idea. How about an ice cream sundae?

I didn’t have any sauce on hand, but that was remedied easily enough. Some chocolate chips, a little heavy cream, a few grains of salt and a splash of vanilla in a glass bowl. Microwave for two minutes. Drizzle – okay, slosh – over scoops of vanilla ice cream.

Delicious. Celebratory. A wonderful way to sign off on Back to School Day and a very busy week.