Up until a couple weeks ago, our family always had an excuse not
to volunteer our time. There always seemed to be a soccer game,
family commitment, work obligation, or birthday party to get in
the way of us spending our Saturday mornings volunteering our
time to help others. Well no longer, we have adopted a new
family motto, "No More Excuses", and this past Saturday we put
it to the test.
It was a dreary cold morning and all of us were tired from a
long week of work and school. When the time came to get out of
bed at 7 a.m. and go volunteer our help delivering food to the
elderly any previous enthusiasm we had suddenly faded away. We
wasted no time in coming up with a lot of reasons not to go like
"we're tired", "our beds are warm", "it's cold outside", "we
just want to hang with you" and the list continued. So after my
morning cry of "No More Excuses!", I pulled them from bed, fed
them a warm breakfast, packed them in our new gas filled
minivan, and sped off to our destination. I tuned the grumbles
from the back seat out and continued to cheerfully cry "No more
excuses!", "You'll love this, trust me!", "You'll feel so good
when you're done!" all the way to our church. At church we met
up with some other families who looked just as enthused as us to
be there at 8:30 a.m. on a cold dreary Saturday morning and all
of us loaded into the van and off we went. It wasn't long before
we started talking about all the great things in our lives and
all of our past volunteer experiences and suddenly we were a
little more enthused. After arriving at the charity
headquarters, we were quickly put to work delivering food to low
income elderly where we were greeted with smiles of hello, cries
of happiness, and thanks filled with gratefulness. Suddenly our
nice warm beds of a couple hours ago didn't seem so important
and we ended our day of volunteering by getting just as much out
of it as those we helped.
So the next time your family has the opportunity to volunteer,
what will be your excuse? Remember, your kids will thank you for
the little things later.
About the author:
Polly Schlafhauser is Founder and President of Families with
Purpose, a website dedicated to helping busy families enhance
their family life. To subscribe to their newsletter or to learn
more about volunteering as a family, visit their website at
www.familieswithpurpose.com
