Part of a complete part of your balanced life... I wrote another entry a few minutes ago, but I've decided to save it as something I feel is more relevant has occured today. It wasn't time specific, so it'll come back out later. But onto right now: Call it karma, call it natural selection or just ID it as balance, somehow the universe just seems to equal itself out. I call it F-ing Brilliant.
Today when doing grunt work and calling agencies on a call list for the Volunteer Center, I wound up talking to a guy (Dr. actually) down in Bristol who helps lead a agency that provides food and clothing and va. reources and supplies for needy families. What made this call so amazing was that once he figured out what I was calling about he, his whole demeanor changed and he said "Oh, no we have all our volunteers set up and going strong (down here)!" He then went on, gushing about how they have over 1000 toys they are in the process of giving out to children, and how they were able to provide 4 or even 5 toys for needy children this past holliday season. He got so excited as he told me all that they do on a daily, weekly, and yearly basis (keep in mind all I was calling for was to make sure they still exist so we can keep them on out website). He just kept going on and on about all the things their organization does. 'Oh,' he added in his Itallian accent, '...and we're not looking for any publicity. This is all quiet you know? We just are so happy to be able to do this.' It was so cool!

Then a few minutes later my boss comes down and talks to me about a grant she just received. She had sent me the proposal she wrote up for us to get it and asked if I had read over it. I hadn't, but she talked about how now it would be mostly on my shoulders all the work that needed to be done (now that we have some money for...whatever it is I have to now do). Okay, so that's cool, whatever. Keeps me busy. Except as I began reading through the proposal I realize that my boss wasn't exactly...on the proposal, and now that we have been awarded the grant we (or, I) have a lot of work that needs to be completed before we can get up to speed from where we said we already were in order to receive the money. In other words...and I'm not saying anyone lied...but let's say maybe (edited--jrh) that the truth was stretched a tad. Then we were awarded a grant and now we have to accomplish not only what we said we would do with the money but also create what we said we already had in place. It's not as bad as I'm making it out to be I'm sure, maybe I'm just a little confused. Still this is the side of the nonprofit world that I don't get at all. The business side of nonprofits really amazes me; the fact that organizations with the intent in place towards community service and volunteerism have to be run as if they were for profit industries. I'm quickly realizing this might not be the field for me to spend life in.

No, in my life I'm very much the first person and I hope to stay that way until the day I croak. Still I have to realize that one could not exist without the other, and vice versa. This is life, and this is our world. And we can't do anything about it but smile and nod or scrap and yell. And then take a deep breath and smile again.  ¶ 2/24/2006 03:35:00 PM