Beagle Mafia

Pretty much who I am and what I do.

The origin of my volunteering comes from me being a bad teenager. You see, my mother was a single parent working full time for a very large hospital. One particular summer, I was grounded literally for the entire summer(honestly cant remember what for) and I was to go to work with my mother full time. 8hrs a day I was a candy stripper wait, striper. HAA! (Hey sound like a nice sexy Halloween costume.) Anyway, since I volunteered so much, I did a large variety of jobs. One job was to feed Alzheimer patients. I learned so much compassion and love from the people and the families that horrible disease affects. In fact, I have and still want to go to nursing school because of this experience. The issue with that is I am a horrible needle phobic. Like pass out on the ground even looking at one....so yeah, no nursing in my future :(

So now, just this week alone I was a volunteering fool. Obviously running a rescue is a volunteer full time job. I live and breathe rescue. Beyond that, I am thee only classroom volunteer in my son's class. Somehow I got rooked into teaching a math session once a week in the classroom. Oh and math is like my worst subject so I have to have Capo teach me how to teach the kids simple math problems. I also go into the classroom and help the teacher for two hours a week. I do this because I like to be heavily involved in my son's academic life as a student. I want to know what is going on in the classroom. Not to mention, having an in with the teacher will help your kid from time to time. :wink Volunteering in the classroom also allows me time to silently cover the teacher, the children and the room in prayer. I never underestimate the power of prayer.

I am also a PTA parent. You see we have a brand spanking new school here in my subdivision and I wanted to get involved immediately before the PTA clique forms. Last year, I was involved with the PTA in the old school but it was short of being back in high school again. Too much chattiness for me.

I got an email to come for a vision screening meeting Friday. Apparently the school's PTA is in charge of vision screening all 600 kids. So I go to the meeting and there I learn we would we are actually administering the vision tests and referring students to opthamologists if necessary. Of course, only 5 out of 1,2000 parents so show up to the meeting. I am not sure why this is the PTA's responsibility but for some reason it is. I remember going down to the school nurse every year for this screening. Interestingly enough, we do not have a full time nurse in our school which I find pretty darn scary honestly.

I am also a 2 year old children's ministry lead teacher at my church. While this is an act of volunteering, this is also the single most rewarding ministry to be involved with. I love these little walking balls of temper, rage, fit throwing, hugging, kissing, slobbering toddlers like they are my own. Don't get me wrong, 2 1/2 hours of non stop chasing, coddling, and correcting 10-20 2 year old is a load of work and quite a work out. I do this 3 times a month. I aspire to make a mark on these kid's lives that can not be erased.

So if you are wondering why I neglect this blog so much, you can see I am a busy volunteering woman in many different arenas of my life.