Other People’s Children

I have been enjoying some really fun, celebratory lunches and dinners this holiday season, celebrating birthdays and the overall holiday season with my family and with my friends. I am looking forward to a warm dinner tonight with some of my closest friends and I can’t wait for a very special lunch today. Today, I have a Christmas lunch with a very good friend, whom I just met this fall. We have lunch together every Wednesday. I enjoy her company so much. She makes me feel like a giddy little kid again. Often, our lunches together, are one my highlights for the week.

Today, we are going to munch on McDonald’s Happy Meals, as a special treat. We’ll probably eat inside today because of the weather, which is a bummer, because my friend really prefers to eat outside. She wants to be an opera singer, but she’s too embarrassed to sing in front of big crowds. She sings and dances in front of me sometimes, on warm, sunny days. She’s very talented and animated. Sometimes, when we eat lunch, my friend and I wear brightly lit headbands, or headbands that have unicorn horns or kitty ears. My friend is very neat; much neater than I am. She brushes my crumbs off the table, right after I finish eating. She and I talk about important stuff, like the proper way to eat cupcakes. We both love fashion. We use our imaginations a lot. I love to hear stories about my friend’s dolls named Nuneia, Bonita, Rock, Paris and France. My friend is kind, funny, loving, thoughtful, smart and cute as a button. Her name means beautiful flower and she is in the third grade. My friend is my “lunch buddy”, which is a county-wide program, setting adult mentors up with kids who could use a little extra attention in life. (which is really just about every kid. Like they said at mentor training, being a mentor is just all about being a good listener, a good friend, and a believer and shower of all of the potential and abilities of their “buddies”. Like they kept repeating at mentor training, “Who couldn’t use a mentor?”)

Our county school system is the 8th largest in Florida and the 27th largest in the country. Our county has over 3500 homeless students and 54% of our students receive subsidized lunches. Our county wide graduation rate is 86% but it is rising, in part, because of an emphasis on programs like the mentoring program, which works to ensure that every child knows how special and vital they are, to this overall, interconnected Web of Life, which we all share. We were taught in mentor training that most kids have three major concerns: Am I normal? Am I liked? Do I fit in? (sadly, some things never change, right?)

They say when you volunteer, you get so much more out of it, than what you put into it. Honestly, that statement has rung hollow to me before. I have volunteered for things/programs/events that made me question why I was even there. There are cynical times in my volunteering life, when I have felt like I was just a warm body to fill a quota, in order to get some funding needed, or for a tax break, or to provide an “image” for a company or other entity, to show that this particular entity is “making a difference.” This is not one of those times. I have been mentoring a high school student and a “little flower” this fall semester, and this experience has changed my views and my outlooks and my patience and my compassion and my hopes for the future, PROFOUNDLY. Our school district can’t find enough mentors. Our already overtaxed teachers often mentor a few kids, on top of everything else that they do, because there are not enough volunteers. If you have a little extra time for some fascinating insights, and communication with today’s youths, please check out the mentoring programs in your local school district. You ARE qualified. You ARE needed. You WILL love it!

“Each of us must come to care about everyone else’s children. We must recognize that the welfare of our children and grandchildren is intimately linked to the welfare of all other people’s children. After all, when one of our children needs lifesaving surgery, someone else’s child will perform it. If one of our children is threatened or harmed by violence, someone else’s child will be responsible for the violent act. The good life for our own children can be secured only if good life is also secured for all other people’s children.” – Lillian Kate