The reason that I really liked my student this past weekend was because we had a great conversation about how difficult it is to be a charity that serves a sad cause. We talked mostly about how the burden of your cause makes it hard sometimes to come out from under the weight of your own mission, storied tradition, and social standing. This is extremely challenging especially when we are talking about shifting social circumstances and community exposure and how to evolve with your community. We talked about how people now expect charity to be fun and to give them something. Not like a physical gift necessarily (though the case with some frequency [srsly stop asking me for a tshirt, dude]), but they expect the experience to somehow serve their own purpose. I had ten hours today of reminder why fun doesnt ever get to be a factor for this. I feel like if more people got to experience the un-curated and messy reality of what we do that they would abandon that expectation and just quietly give their time or money or resources. The kind of devastation we saw today in some of these homes was truly baffling. I have only responded to fires, so this was my first flood and I learned so much about everything, but mostly about how physics doesnt give a good goddamn about anything, like your fences, your landscaping, your drainage ditches, your runoff areas, how new your vehicle is, that you have a baby in the house, that your primary residence is a mobile home, that you cant find all your pets, or that you dont have flood insurance. The Red Cross has well over 100 open cases between the flooding in New River and Laveen and we could really use your donations. If you think we are doodyheads for standing you up at prom, please donate to one of our partner organizations in AzVOAD, like Habitat for Humanity, Victim Relief Ministries, AZ Food Banks, or Southern Baptist Church. If you find yourself out and about in the New River area, swing by the Roadrunner Cafe and donate to the relief fund the community started up to help out. TL;DR? I just had a shower beer and you would too.
Posted on: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 06:01:44 +0000
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