Contribute

Now that I’ve been to the South Franklin Community Center a few times, I’ve started to learn some of the kids’ names. Every time I have gone I have helped a different kid with their homework or with their reading or even just played games with them, but I’ve found even after the hour that I am there that they are special. They each have their little quirks, their idiosyncrasies that can amaze and perplex. They are unique.

I was always told I was unique, even if I didn’t feel like it. I was always told that I was smart, even when I failed. If someone told this kids that they were smart and beautiful and unique, would they believe it? Or better yet, is there someone who even says it? At the South Franklin Community Center, the kids are encouraged and applauded. What about those kids who don’t come? Does anyone tell them that they’ve done well? Is anyone home to say it, or are they working overtime at their second job?

            Our lives are so different that sometimes I wonder if they understand why I am there. Do they understand why their community has a center like that? Do they understand that I volunteered to help there because it was an area of Provo that has a high crime rate? Or do they think that everywhere is the same?

            When I was growing up I didn’t know what alcohol was. I had only seen people smoke in public, outside stores in our shopping center. I thought that everyone lived like I do, and when I got to middle school I just thought that everyone changed once they graduated high school. In my mind, once you were an adult you didn’t do stupid things anymore. It’s surprising how wrong you can be.

            So I wonder if the opposite is true. Did this little boy think that everywhere was like the Boulders? Does he know any better? I didn’t.

How much am I helping? Is my service going to change a child, a community, or a nation?  Heaven only knows. But then, I don’t think anything will happen if I don’t serve. If I stay at home and watch a movie nothing will change. If I go shopping nothing will change. If everyone decides that what they could do wouldn’t make a difference, then there would be no differences made. No one would attempt.

The point is not to see the change immediately, and it is not to think that we are insignificant. The point is to hope for something better and to recognize that without movement nothing is done. It will not get better if we do not act. It will not go away if we ignore it. There is one solution. No matter how small your contribution is, contribute.