It's too cold outside for angels to fly.

I think she knows.

and a part of me wants her to.

Volunteering my time.

With the end of my college career coming to a close, I was recently asked to talk about my experiences volunteering. And as I thought about what I was going to say, I discovered that I have spent so much of my time volunteering, mostly with UT HOPE.

In my sophomore year, I was looking for an opportunity to get involved in the Austin community. One night, I was browsing around on Facebook, and happened to stumble onto one of my middle school friend’s page. I saw that he was attending a meeting for UT HOPE, a health based volunteer group, and decided to attend as well. At the first meeting, I realized a lot of my friends were also involved with UT HOPE, and I was immediately interested in becoming a member. The best part was that there were no membership requirements - no dues, no requirements, no commitments. It was simply an organization of student’s with a genuine interest in volunteering. I signed up for several events, and was elated to have found a good place to volunteer with.

After 3 years, my time with UT HOPE is coming to a close, and I have just now realized how much time I have devoted to this organization. I have spent almost every Saturday during the school year at a UT HOPE event. This year, as a senior and co-chair of UT HOPE, the only weekend we did not have an event planned, me and my fellow co-chairs ran a marathon.

Through all my experiences in the Austin community, I have learned that the world is more than just students, TA’s, and professors. The diverse populace we work with and help is simply mind blowing. We have worked with Breast cancer survivors, surgery recovering patients, active community leaders, and several other student volunteers just to name a few. The underlying theme behind all of these people is that they are just like us. They share similar interests, ideas, humor, and simply highlight the goodness of the human spirit.

The best moment I have had volunteering was this year at Project 2012. We were building a fence to block off a cliff where little children play. Naturally, there were a lot of nails and drilling involved, and someone made a statement claim. I instictively pulled a “that’s what she said”, and heard the usual, “very mature chris” and “wow chris”. However, I heard an unfamiliar chuckle from behind me. I looked around, and saw an elderly man, about late 50’s who we were working with on the fence with, and immediately felt guilty. I looked at him and quickly apologized for my immature comment. He simply smirked at me, and said, “don’t apologize. that was the best one I have heard in a long time!”, and continued laughing. For a man with such a different background and maturity level to laugh at my immature joke was simply unexpected.

That’s when I realized that we, as volunteers, are not so different from the people we help. Up to that point, I always thought of us, university student volunteers, were always distinct from the people we worked with and helped. I thought that we were foreign people coming to a foreign land, doing something, and then leaving to go back to our homes. However, this moment made me realize that we are all the same, more similar than we think. We aren’t foreigners coming to foreign lands. We are part of their community, and they are a part of ours.

The smallest gifts can make such a large impact. I think that is the most important lesson I have learned in my 4 years of community involvement. Every little project UT HOPE has done has been recieved with such heart-filling thank you letters, emails, and speeches. It is a great feeling to know that through all my small acts of kindness, I have been able to create an impact on several people’s lives here in the Austin community.

This past weekend, UT HOPE cooked a dinner for the 8th floor night-shift nurses at Brackenridge hospital. When we delivered the food, they were so thrilled. The initial nurses called all of the other nurses working on the floor to come see what we brought, and I could truly see their genuine appreciation for such a small gesture. It was without a doubt, the best Easter presents I have ever given.