Community Service: Challenge and Innovation

Barnes & Conti has what I think is a truly innovative approach to giving back to the community. Our approach is—simply put—get involved! Each of us can take up to one day, paid, per quarter to do community service. 

I had my first community service experience this past weekend. You see, I’m also lucky enough to have community-oriented friends. This past January—while watching the presidential inauguration—a group of us decided that we were going to do community service once a month, or at least once a month. We had our initial meeting last month, a brain-storming session, to discuss talents, abilities and opportunities.

Our first opportunity arose this past Saturday. A local non-profit(1), the Peninisula Children’s Center, was recruiting volunteers to paint classrooms, one classroom per volunteer session. After much exchanged email among our group, we got all the details, and 12 of us committed to the task.

Penninsula Children’s Center is a non-profit that provides childcare, pre-school education, and family support programs in a low-income, multi-ethnic neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. The center serves 205 children, ages 6-weeks to 12-years. The center’s tuition is on a sliding-scale basis, to accommodate low-income families.

My wife and I arrived promptly at 10:00 am on Saturday morning. We were the first volunteers to show up. We were to paint a 500 square foot classroom with 12 foot ceilings. Fortunately, we didn’t have to paint the ceiling! 

The room was a worn, rose-ish pink. It had already been prepped, and masked. Our task was to paint the walls. The Center provided rollers and brushes applenty, with more than enough paint. We got to work as soon as we had drop clothes and paint trays in place. 

One of the other volunteers gave me a quick lesson in using a roller, and we were off. Within the next hour, the other members of our little group arrived and got to work. Within an hour and a half, the room was 80% done! A few of us switched our efforts to an adjacent lavatory, also badly in need of paint.

The atmosphere couldn’t have been more relaxed or congenial. No one had to get up on a ladder if they didn’t want to. I had to take frequent breaks to accommodate my “computer wrists.” By 12:30 pm, both rooms were a lovely shade of magnolia-white. Little was left to do except clean up. By 1:00 we were finished!

Ultimately, the experience was fun, uplifting, and helped build community among our little group. We learned about one of the fine non-profits in our city, and I picked up a new skill that will come in handy, if we ever get around to painting our house…

A brief postscript: another possible opportunity unique to my abilities came up as we were getting ready to leave. One of our number knows someone who manages a childcare center for children of homeless families. The center is looking for volunteers to demonstrate musical instruments for the children, play a little music, and take questions. I wrote a proposal to demonstrate the clarinet and the bassoon. I’m hoping something comes of it.

Joel Kleinbaum
Blogger-in-Chief
Telecommuter in Portland, Oregon