One of the first standalone events I ever planned was a donor drive for a young child. One of the reporters from the paper I worked at had written a story about him & his family and after reading it I was both moved and furious. The parents were both working full-time and half/pick-up work on top of raising one healthy son and one younger son who had cancer. I didnât have any money, I had already been on the registry myself for years at that point (so obviously I wasnât a match or Iâd have been called) but I did have something: time.
So I gathered up info, started making some calls and before I knew it had everything needed from a venue to phlebotomists to decorations, a mini flier stuffed in with the payroll cheque of the largest employees in the area, radio/paper ads, and made a sandwich board I wore around the Farmerâs Market in the few weeks before the drive. I would get asked left and right if I was related to the kid, if he was my student or neighbor or family friends or if I was being paid and the #1 response to my âNope, heâs just a local kid who needs a transplant, Iâm doing it because I can and his family should be spending all the time they can with him, so with their permission I started this drive to help.â?
âSo if you donât know this kid at all and arenât getting money why are you doing all of this?â
Because I can. Because I donât need to know someone to help them. Because it infuriates me that for them to try and save their kid, they miss out of that very life they want to save. Because their situation isnât one I have personal experience with doesnât invalidate me from being able to empathize and care and offer what I can. It isnât much, but itâs what I can do and what I feel like I should do.
After the drive, I was crying in my car absolutely beyond frustration at the turnout. With all the media, payroll fliers, posters, etc. Iâd figured weâd get 500+. We got 86. The regional manager of the saw me and congratulated me on a successful drive and I was like âThanks for saying that even though we both know it wasnât.â Before I said anything else she said âSTOP. We just had a booth at a large 3 day event and didnât break 25 for the entire weekend. By any measure, this was a successful event.â
I decided on the spot to keep running drives and volunteering and beating the drum. I ran larger events with more groups participating, did small events, got everyone I knew to sign up and kept on moving. That young boy did find a match through a different drive elsewhere, thank everything, and more encouraging is that several of the drives I coordinated found donor matches with at least 3 successful transplants. I didnât know any of those patients either, but neither did the donors and they still signed up because of the chance theyâd be a match for someone in the world.
A lot of us are motivated to mitigate the suffering of others, not to increase the comfort of ourselves. I may not be able to buy groceries with the shaky smiles of gratitude or knee-level hugs, but those things feed your very core of your being and fill your heart to bursting.
Iâm an atheist, yet the Prayer of St Francis evoked such a strong feeling in me that Iâve tweaked it and have it as a future tattoo design.
I will be an instrument of peace
Where there is hatred, I will bring love;
Where there is injury, justice;
Where there is illness, healing;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
As I walk this path, I will strive all my days
Not so much seek to be consoled as to console
To be understood, as to understand
To be loved, as to give love
For it is in giving that we receive
It is in sharing that we are are made One,
And it is in Love that we are made eternal.
I donât understand how so many people require so much more reason or reward to simply be kind and care about each other. Be compassionate, care about others more than you do about yourself, and offer help where you can.
kianamaiart
snowghoul
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