Give a little of yourself by becoming a volunteer
One boy turned and whispered excitedly to the woman behind him. The other children reacted like children anywhere - some were excited, some ho-hum, and some, inevitably, acknowledged the presence of this strange man, despite his presents, with an eruption of tears.
If not for the intravenous tubes, the crutches, the premature bald heads, this Christmas party could have been taking place anywhere in Poland besides the cancer ward at the Wola Institut Matka i Dzieczka.
And there would most likely be no Christmas celebration for these children if not for the effort of volunteers. "If there are no volunteers, there's no program," said Reena Talwar, vice president of charity for the American Friends in Warsaw.
That's where organizations such as the American Friends in Warsaw and the Warsaw Volunteer Centre come in.
While the media seem to wait until the holiday season or a Siberian cold snap to focus their attention on the plight of the less fortunate, some organizations work year-round to find volunteers to fill roles for which there is no monetary remuneration.
And now you can help. If you've been wondering what the hell there is to do in Warsaw that doesn't involve alcohol and guilty hangovers, try volunteering. All it requires is some of your time and whatever skills you might possess.
Time is one thing no one thinks he or she has; it's much easier to throw money at problems. But finding time might be the bigger gift. "So many people donate money to charities instead of donating time. ... This is actually giving of yourself," said Lesley Wilson of London, an American Friend in Warsaw member and a volunteer at the cancer ward.
The time required might be as little as a half hour or as much as 10 hours a week. For example, when my wife was a child, a friend of her dad's volunteered to show up one Christmas Eve as Santa Claus and surprise her and her five siblings. Time commitment: 30 minutes out of the year. Santa showed up bombed and spent his visit yelling and shaking a large branch until he had cornered the cowering and crying children. Time needed to undo the psychological damage: 30 years.
OK, maybe that's a bad example. While Santa's heart was in the right place, his snout hadn't been. The point is, it required only a half hour out of a whole year (not counting the time it took him to "prepare").
In addition to time, you can give a part of yourself to help others by, say, donating a bodily fluid to a bank. (I'm talking blood here.) It's relatively painless, if you're not freaked by needles.
Twice I volunteered to give blood while I was in the U.S. Army because blood donors got the rest of the day off. I gave a pint of blood, returned to the barracks, showed the drill sergeant the iodine-soaked cotton swab taped to my forearm and slept the rest of the day. Two weeks later, I volunteered again, but the nurse told me that I couldn't give blood because it was too soon since my last donation. Before leaving the hospital, I found a storage closet stocked with medical supplies, including iodine and cotton swabs. I returned to the barracks, showed the drill sergeant an iodine-soaked cotton swab taped to my forearm and slept the rest of the day.
The point here is that your motive for volunteering might seem selfish because you're doing it to meet YOUR needs to feel better about YOURself or to create good karma. Regardless, your actions do help; someone benefited from my blood.
In addition to feeling good about yourself, you can make someone else happy by spending time with them. "It's such a nice feeling if you can make someone feel good," Talwar said during a lull in the festivities at the cancer ward, one of five that AFW volunteers visit.
Usually, the volunteers help the children make crafts and play games "just to divert their minds from their sickness and chemotherapy," Talwar said.
The Children's Cancer Relief Program is just one of many volunteer projects coordinated by the American Friends in Warsaw, a social and charitable organization.
The program started in September 1997 when two volunteers visited once a month, Talwar said. Now volunteers visit each ward once every 10 days.
Dr. Marzena Lorkowska said the children in the Wola cancer ward anxiously await the volunteers' visit. They're "very eager to see someone else" other than doctors and nurses every day, she said.
Another reason to volunteer is to help the country you're temporarily living in. "Our volunteers tend to be committed," AFW President Lynthia Romney said. "They believe in what they're doing in giving back to their host country."
Their host country's past has confused the idea of volunteerism. The Warsaw Volunteer Centre is trying to right that confusion.
According to "How to Work With Volunteers," a manual written by Malgorzata Ochman, president of the center's board of directors, and Pawel Jordan, vice president, volunteering has "historic negative connotations which Poles associated with community involvement or, to be more precise, with what was called czyny spoleczne, compulsory community work orchestrated by the Communist Party and managed directly by state-owned enterprises."
Frequently the work was 'involuntary' and involved useless projects considered a waste of time."
The center puts a new spin on this by recruiting, interviewing and training potential volunteers so that it can match them with public and private organizations needing assistance. "What's new is that it's planned and organized so each hour of their work is effective," said Magdalena Kurpiewski of the Volunteer Centre.
One of 11 volunteer agencies throughout Poland, the center has an unusual problem: It has more volunteers than it has positions to fill. The center has about 500 registered volunteers and about 200 positions for them, Kurpiewski said.
That may be a sign that the Volunteer Centre is winning its battle.
But it's not a reason to not volunteer.
For more information ...
About the American Friends of Warsaw, call its hot line at 843-8888.
About the Warsaw Volunteer Centre (Centrum Wolontariatu), ul. Nowolipie 9/11, call 635-2773, fax 635-4602, or
e-mail wolontar@medianet.com.pl.
If not for the intravenous tubes, the crutches, the premature bald heads, this Christmas party could have been taking place anywhere in Poland besides the cancer ward at the Wola Institut Matka i Dzieczka.
And there would most likely be no Christmas celebration for these children if not for the effort of volunteers. "If there are no volunteers, there's no program," said Reena Talwar, vice president of charity for the American Friends in Warsaw.
That's where organizations such as the American Friends in Warsaw and the Warsaw Volunteer Centre come in.
While the media seem to wait until the holiday season or a Siberian cold snap to focus their attention on the plight of the less fortunate, some organizations work year-round to find volunteers to fill roles for which there is no monetary remuneration.
And now you can help. If you've been wondering what the hell there is to do in Warsaw that doesn't involve alcohol and guilty hangovers, try volunteering. All it requires is some of your time and whatever skills you might possess.
Time is one thing no one thinks he or she has; it's much easier to throw money at problems. But finding time might be the bigger gift. "So many people donate money to charities instead of donating time. ... This is actually giving of yourself," said Lesley Wilson of London, an American Friend in Warsaw member and a volunteer at the cancer ward.
The time required might be as little as a half hour or as much as 10 hours a week. For example, when my wife was a child, a friend of her dad's volunteered to show up one Christmas Eve as Santa Claus and surprise her and her five siblings. Time commitment: 30 minutes out of the year. Santa showed up bombed and spent his visit yelling and shaking a large branch until he had cornered the cowering and crying children. Time needed to undo the psychological damage: 30 years.
OK, maybe that's a bad example. While Santa's heart was in the right place, his snout hadn't been. The point is, it required only a half hour out of a whole year (not counting the time it took him to "prepare").
In addition to time, you can give a part of yourself to help others by, say, donating a bodily fluid to a bank. (I'm talking blood here.) It's relatively painless, if you're not freaked by needles.
Twice I volunteered to give blood while I was in the U.S. Army because blood donors got the rest of the day off. I gave a pint of blood, returned to the barracks, showed the drill sergeant the iodine-soaked cotton swab taped to my forearm and slept the rest of the day. Two weeks later, I volunteered again, but the nurse told me that I couldn't give blood because it was too soon since my last donation. Before leaving the hospital, I found a storage closet stocked with medical supplies, including iodine and cotton swabs. I returned to the barracks, showed the drill sergeant an iodine-soaked cotton swab taped to my forearm and slept the rest of the day.
The point here is that your motive for volunteering might seem selfish because you're doing it to meet YOUR needs to feel better about YOURself or to create good karma. Regardless, your actions do help; someone benefited from my blood.
In addition to feeling good about yourself, you can make someone else happy by spending time with them. "It's such a nice feeling if you can make someone feel good," Talwar said during a lull in the festivities at the cancer ward, one of five that AFW volunteers visit.
Usually, the volunteers help the children make crafts and play games "just to divert their minds from their sickness and chemotherapy," Talwar said.
The Children's Cancer Relief Program is just one of many volunteer projects coordinated by the American Friends in Warsaw, a social and charitable organization.
The program started in September 1997 when two volunteers visited once a month, Talwar said. Now volunteers visit each ward once every 10 days.
Dr. Marzena Lorkowska said the children in the Wola cancer ward anxiously await the volunteers' visit. They're "very eager to see someone else" other than doctors and nurses every day, she said.
Another reason to volunteer is to help the country you're temporarily living in. "Our volunteers tend to be committed," AFW President Lynthia Romney said. "They believe in what they're doing in giving back to their host country."
Their host country's past has confused the idea of volunteerism. The Warsaw Volunteer Centre is trying to right that confusion.
According to "How to Work With Volunteers," a manual written by Malgorzata Ochman, president of the center's board of directors, and Pawel Jordan, vice president, volunteering has "historic negative connotations which Poles associated with community involvement or, to be more precise, with what was called czyny spoleczne, compulsory community work orchestrated by the Communist Party and managed directly by state-owned enterprises."
Frequently the work was 'involuntary' and involved useless projects considered a waste of time."
The center puts a new spin on this by recruiting, interviewing and training potential volunteers so that it can match them with public and private organizations needing assistance. "What's new is that it's planned and organized so each hour of their work is effective," said Magdalena Kurpiewski of the Volunteer Centre.
One of 11 volunteer agencies throughout Poland, the center has an unusual problem: It has more volunteers than it has positions to fill. The center has about 500 registered volunteers and about 200 positions for them, Kurpiewski said.
That may be a sign that the Volunteer Centre is winning its battle.
But it's not a reason to not volunteer.
For more information ...
About the American Friends of Warsaw, call its hot line at 843-8888.
About the Warsaw Volunteer Centre (Centrum Wolontariatu), ul. Nowolipie 9/11, call 635-2773, fax 635-4602, or
e-mail wolontar@medianet.com.pl.
