One of the more difficult hurdles I discovered when trying to volunteer was actually finding some place where I could volunteer. Figuring that there were many agencies and groups that would be jumping up and down just waiting for a willing work pool, I started to inquire, only to discover the world of disfunctionality that exists within the volunteer corps themselves.

First, I thought it would be fun to build housing for the poor and struggling. Having seen the articles and stories on Jimmy Carter’s involvement with Habitat for Humanity, I decided to volunteer with them. Having skills in carpentry, I figured I’d be able to offer lots of assistance in this field, but when I showed up at the interview, I discovered a very interesting dynamic that existed there. The woman who interviewed me kept asking me “why” I was volunteering. She kept looking into the “crime” I must have committed to be referred to their group, and even though I kept saying I found their name in the phone book and wasn’t in trouble in any way, she kept treating me like I was some prisoner who was getting a furlough to work off a debt to society. But I tried to ignore that and eventually got to go to a site where I could work.

Well, I discovered this to be a very interesting situation in that the person in charge of that site had two modes: “Leave me alone” and “You are all scum who are working for me so get your asses in gear, or you’ll pay dearly for crossing me.” It took me a short bit to realize that the majority of the people who were part of this project were all working off some debt to society, and that most were court-ordered placed on this job. I tried to work in this environment, but I kept feeling that I was now cast in a bad adaptation of Cool Hand Luke, so that when my day was done, I decided this was not the kind of volunteering I wanted to do.

So, I looked for something else. And what I found in that search process was how much dysfunctionality there is in the volunteer search process. The people were generally nice, but finding an actual assignment was really difficult. I should point out that I wasn’t interested in working with kids, mainly because I was paranoid about the tendency of agencies to accuse anyone around kids of improper behavior, even if all you did was show up to work. I had a friend of mine who was working with kids for some years, and she was accused of all sorts of atrocities, only to finally discover that the woman accusing her was a certified looney, who the agency discovered after my friend was almost railroaded through the criminal justice system. I decided I didn’t want anything to do with that.

So, I found myself hooked up with an agency called Lighthouse for the Blind, which is a service to volunteer with blind people. The first meeting was what sold me on this group because there was a young woman who was recently afflicted with blindness, who was tasked with speaking to the volunteers who attended the first orientation. Her motivational speech about how helpful the agency was seemed insightful and interesting, but to be honest, it was when I was walking home from the first meeting when I was sold. The girl was walking down the street towards her destination, and she was taking forever to get down the street. The visuals we were offered during the orientation showed blind people making their way pretty well, but this poor girl was having the most difficult time walking down the street alone, and I was immediately sold on the need to see what I could do to help someone like this so that a journey should never take as long as that one was taking her that day.

When I volunteered, they set me up with an old guy named Frank. He was one of those cranky, “I can do everything on my own” kind of guys who really just needed help reading his mail, folding his money and getting him to and from the store every now and then. I volunteered with him for a few months, showing up a couple of times a week and pretty much being his eyes for such little tasks.

Of course, after a few months, he started opening up and felt a lot more comfortable talking to me about things. That’s when I discovered there was a hidden side to Frank that you’d never know from any previous conversation. The conversation that made me realize it went something like:

Me: You have a letter here from the AARP (the retired people organization).

Frank: Just throw it away.

Me: Are you sure?

Frank: Those people piss me off. They have too many agendas. Like the Coloreds.

Then he started referring to ethnicities and races in extremely derogatory terms. I guess he felt really comfortable with me by then, so he just opened up and, and I discovered I was volunteering to help one of the most racist people I’d ever encountered. And it never escaped me the fact that he was blind, which should have made a difference (at least to me, it seemed like it would), but no, he was dogmatic about his beliefs and he would waste no amount of time getting to how much he hated “those people”.

Finally, I realized I couldn’t continue working with this guy. I realized he needed my help, but whenever I actually tried talking about such subjects, he would pretty much shut me down and talk about issues in ways that were extremely demeaning. He pretty much hated everyone, including African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, and the Irish. By this time, my girlfriend was constantly coming over with me, spending quality time with me and Frank. Bless her heart, but not once did she ever reveal to him that she was Chinese, even when he took the opportunity to refer to Asians in some horrible fashion.

So I stopped showing up and told the Lighthouse I had to discontinue this volunteer opportunity. I could have chosen to work with someone else, but by then I was completely burnt out, and my girlfriend no longer wanted me to work with them any more. I mean, there was only so much she could take, and I didn’t blame her either. She wanted to share such time with me, and there’s only so much you can ask from another person.

So I stopped volunteering. Every now and then I think about taking up another opportunity again, but I find it hard to take the next first step.