Volunteering & Volunteer Students

Published in “Audrey: The Asian American Women’s Lifestyle Magazine,”  June/July 2009.

By Janice Miller

Plastic bags and garbage littered the gutters of the dirt street I walked down. I was headed toward the main road to catch a pedicab to the city’s central market. There was a boy selling small bags of peanuts on the side of the street. At about 8 years old, he wore a pair of threadbare shorts, flip-flops that were a few sizes too big, and a once-white T-shirt tarnished with layers of dirt. Patches of the boy’s dark skin peeked through a few tears in the fabric. “Mabuhay,” I said to him. He smiled up at me, his eyes squinting shut from the glare of the afternoon sun. “Mabuhay,” he said, “Kamusta ka?” “I’m good,” I answered. As a pedicab pulled over from the busy road and drove toward me, I handed the boy some of my grocery money and waved goodbye to him.

I met that boy nine years ago. I was 17, just out of high school and “not-voluntarily” volunteering six weeks of my summer to help impoverished children in Dumaguete City, Philippines with Little Children of the Philippines Foundation, Inc. (LCPFI), a subsidiary of the nonprofit Little Children of the World. I use the term “not-voluntarily” because it was not me but my family who felt I should trek through the humid jungles and smog-filled streets of the Philippines to stem a better connection with my mother’s homeland.

Volunteering had never been something that I had actively pursued. There was that one time I volunteered in elementary school as a Girl Scout, but I didn’t consider that to be completely voluntary since that was required work for a badge. As selfish as it sounds, I was like most American teenagers who felt they shouldn’t have to give up their highly prized free time if there was no incentive beyond a simple “thank you.” Given this attitude, I was surprised to find myself on a plane headed to the Philippines to help street kids I’d never met before get the food and education I never had to fight for in America.

As a part of the foundation’s program to aid street children, I spent my days doing case studies on local children and their families, detailing every aspect of their lives right down to their finances. My reports were used to identify whether or not a child could use a sponsor to help their family pay for school, food and medication if necessary. In the evenings I tutored two girls who were having trouble with their math and English in school.

It may not sound like I was very productive during my stay. When you think of volunteer work, you generally think of instant results such as helping in a soup kitchen where you know that the person you are feeding will be leaving with a full stomach. I can’t guarantee any of the children I interviewed received sponsors or whether the two girls I tutored performed better in school because of my help. I do know, however, that the time I spent with them gave them hope. I also know that it was because of those children that I was able to see a clearer picture of my mother’s childhood.

My mother, who naturally wants me to appreciate my good fortune, used to tell me stories about her childhood and how she had to grow up too fast. One of her first jobs as a child was painting the fingernails and toenails of some of the women in her neighborhood. Our family trips to the Philippines were spent in the family home, not a hotel. We slept on the floor, not in a bed. We showered with rainwater from an outdoor barrel, not with a faucet in a tiled bathroom. The scene was the same on every visit and I became accustomed to “roughing it” for the few weeks we would stay. As a child, the experience was like a fun camping trip. In the end, I went back home to my soft bed in America.

Volunteering was different. I wasn’t being welcomed into a home to chat with a family member. Instead, strangers eagerly ushered me in with hopes that my report on their struggles would gain their child a sponsorship and a more promising future. When I volunteered I saw my mother’s stories unfold in front of me in every child I talked to. Those “stories” were a reality to the children in the Philippines, and they didn’t disappear when I left.

Since the days of my mother’s youth, the Philippine government has made efforts to aid its people by developing programs and passing laws to help stop child labor and provide assistance to poor communities. In 1998, the country’s National Youth Council (NYC) reported that the estimated number of the Philippines’ street children was 1.5 million. There are more than 7,000 islands that make up the Philippines and its street children are scattered among them. To date, the NYC study was the first and only performed by the country to assess its poverty level.

Since that summer, I haven’t had a chance to fly to the Philippines for more volunteer work. Now, student loans and other financial obligations prevent me from traveling, but I haven’t forgotten that boy I met on the street nine years ago, the families I interviewed, or my mother’s stories. It’s such a simple concept that if you identify with a cause, the need to volunteer is inherent. However, as only a once self-absorbed American youth can confess, the journey to reach that point of selflessness is a long one.

Today, I am a freelance writer and a voluntary-volunteer. While I may not be physically in that country, I donate my time between articles by helping the same organization I gave six weeks to, nine years ago. I serve as the editor of LCPFI’s first e-newsletter targeted toward its own volunteers. The quarterly publication serves as the only thread keeping volunteers connected to each other, the organization, and the culture and people of the Philippines. Although my work doesn’t directly aid the Philippines’ street children, the newsletter reminds its readers that their help is still needed.

A few months ago President Obama asked us to volunteer our time and help our fellow Americans as our country continued to fight its way through a tough economy. Shortly after this request, an overwhelming number of Americans felt a need to heed the president’s words, if only for a day, and become beacons of hope to a world with an unstable future. Today, everyone is scrambling to hold onto the extra change they once voluntarily tossed into Starbucks tip jars; it might be more difficult than ever for Americans to consider giving up their time to help a stranger down the street or in another country. But now that we are struggling we can understand the challenges and feel compassion for those who have always suffered, just across the globe, for a time much longer than we have. I plan to continue volunteering my free time to help a cause that I am passionate about. It is my hope that my peers, wherever they are, will voluntarily-volunteer their time as well, to a cause they can connect with and feel inspired by. It’s fantastic when you can help others, but it means more when it means more to you.