Rite of Spring

     I participated in an annual rite of spring (or perhaps late winter?) this morning.  It was time for the Moorestown Rotary Pancake Breakfast.  This is an event that's put on every year by the two Rotary clubs in our home town.  It's the only event each year in which the two clubs work jointly, and it's always a big success, raising thousands of dollars for a variety of local charities.

     As a long-time Rotarian, I enjoy working the event.  It gives me a chance to connect with lots of people who I don't often see throughout the year.  While setting out placemats or cleaning up tables or pouring coffee, I get to chat with many friends and neighbors.  It's definitely a real small town American kind of event.

     This event also always reminds me of the volunteer spirit that's alive and well in our town, and I suspect, in many similar towns all across the country.  There are dozens upon dozens of local organizations that depend on volunteer labor to fulfill their mission of serving the community.  I've been involved in many of these organizations over the years, as have so many of my friends and neighbors.  It's definitely an important part of what makes small towns great places to live.

Pack to School

     For the past bunch of years, the Rotary Cub to which I belong has done a community service project where we buy backpacks for schoolchildren whose families might have difficulty affording them and we fill the backpacks with all the supplies necessary to start school.  Each Rotarian is typically given 2 backpacks to fill, each with the age and gender of a specific child so that we purchase supplies that are appropriate for the person.  With more than 100 packs each year, the program has been a big hit and makes a real difference for an awful lot of families.

     Well, this was the week that packs were distributed to our membership; and to be totally honest, nearly all of us (we're mostly men) simply give the packs to our wives who then go out and take care of filling them.  And to be even more honest, that's what I've done every year - until now.  Today I decided it was time for me to play a more active role in this process and to take care of it all myself.

     I was given an 8 year-old girl and a 10 year-old boy.  On our school district's website, there are lists posted by grade showing the supplies that teachers recommend children come to school with on the first day.  I printed the lists for 3rd and 5th grade students, and armed with my lists, headed off to Target.  As every mother probably knows, and as I soon discovered, Target has a HUGE back-to-school section with everything one could possibly need for students from kindergarten to college.  I bought pens, pencils, rulers, erasers, highlighters, glue sticks, index cards, spiral notebooks, pocket folders, book covers, pencil cases, post-it notes, and a looseleaf - to name just some of the items!

     When I got home with all my packages, I separated them by student and then stuffed the backpacks.  I'll drop them off tomorrow at our designated dropoff spot.  It was actually fun to do, and I'm glad I did it myself this time rather than pawning it off to my wife.  It certainly gave me a greater sense of purpose and meaning, knowing that my efforts were going to have a very direct impact on a local family.

A Community of Helpers

     Today was "Moorestown Day" in my hometown.  This means that Main Street was closed to traffic and tons of vendors of all types were out displaying their items up and down the street.  It's always a festive day, beginning with the annual Rotary 8k Run, and finishing up around 3:00 in the afternoon.  It was a beautiful day and lots of people were out enjoying the springtime weather.

     In the early afternoon, I was at home when I received a call from a friend who works at our town library.  The library was having a book sale today (in conjunction with Moorestown Day) and at the conclusion of the sale, literally thousands of books needed to be boxed and loaded into a van.  My friend was asking for volunteers to come and help at 3:00.  My initial response to her request was that I wasn't available because I had a couple of other things planned for the later afternoon; but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I could at least get there at 3 and get in 45 minutes of help.  And that's what I did.

     When I arrived, there actually were a fair number of people who were already starting on the task at hand.  Before long, a bunch more had also arrived.  It was truly a case of "many hands making light work."  It's amazing how much work can be done pretty quickly when lots of people work together.  It reminded me of some other larger scale projects I've been involved in in town - building a playground, building a running trail, etc. - where we were able to accomplish a tremendous amount in a relatively short amount of time simply because we had so much help.

     Back in 2007, Money Magazine named Moorestown the best small town in America.  There were lots of reasons for this, but unquestionably the sense of community spirit and volunteerism was and is a big part of it.  While I think Moorestown is a pretty cool place with many unique aspects to it, I suspect that a similar volunteer spirit exists in thousands upon thousands of small towns across this country.  I think people naturally seek community, and a big part of what it means to be a community is people helping each other out.  We could also call it kindness.

Community Connections

     Today was the annual Rotary Pancake Breakfast in my home town of Moorestown, NJ.  I'm not sure how many years this event has been held, but it's at least 25 or 30.  The event is co-sponsored by the two Rotary clubs in town - the Afternoon club and the Breakfast club to which I belong.  It's a fun event and is one of our biggest fundraisers of the year.

     Working alongside nearly 100 other Rotarians, I spent the morning pouring coffee, cleaning tables, putting out place settings, and chatting with lots of guests from all over town.  In addition to simply performing my assigned jobs and being nice to people, I tried to look for opportunities to be of extra assistance.  Since the breakfast draws in buses of seniors from local assisted-living communities, there were plenty of people who needed just that little bit of extra help - things like opening a container of syrup, finding a packet of Equal, or getting an extra napkin.  These weren't anything major, but done quietly and gently, they made enjoying the breakfast that much easier for some guests.

     As I left the breakfast, I was thinking about all the people I had seen and talked with who I know from so many different circles - neighbors, teachers, high school classmates, Rotarians, running friends, golfing friends, business acquaintances, and even a family for whom I babysat more than 30 years ago!  I suppose it's that sense of community, of connectedness, that draws many people to small towns like ours.  I wonder if it's in our DNA to want/need those connections, and I wonder what impact our largely transient society and its lack of connectedness has on people.  Perhaps that's why social media sites like Facebook have become so popular.  In some ways, they help satisfy the need for community in a fast-paced, mobile world.  It's still hard to beat chatting with people face-to-face, though.