Volunteering & Volunteer Students

This morning, TGAW, two friends, and I participated in an effort to clean up part of the New River. Previously, the thought of trudging along a snake and poison ivy infested riverbank on a 90 degree day to pick up trash would draw an instant dismissal, but I've been trying a lot of new things lately, and I haven't regretted any of them. It is invigorating to do new things, even when they don't sound that great beforehand. It's good for the creative, inquisitive part of my brain and helps me see how deep of a rut my wheels were in previously.

Anyway, it was a pretty good time. We didn't do the canoe part, so we spent our time taking tires up the riverbank and then picking up and bagging random garbage. The first items we found were a condom box, Bud light bottles, fireworks, and a shotgun shell. It is safe to say that a good time was had by all at that particular box social. We also found an old VCR, a huge kerosene tank, a 30lb, 3' long railroad tie bolt with a 3" nut on the end (this would have made an excellent melee weapon...I Christened it "The Bolt of Zeus"), deer remains, and many other things. The ratio of beer cans that were Bud Light to all other types combined was approximately 5:1.

Oh yeah, one more neat thing about volunteer work is that I don't feel bad when I need to take a break, because I'm donating time anyway!