A Helping Hand [Part Deux]

The ironic thing was, once all of my classmates had left, I was finally able to get working.  It wasn't that they were purposefully hindering our work (though some of them had been there for who knows how long before me, and were clearly so over it).  But just having everyone crammed into one small room, working with only three paint trays and two ladders between us all.... it just couldn't work.  I have my fair share of painting experience (growing up I would always inexplicably ask to help with painting rooms, shelves, and any other project around the house, and I've painted many a friend's room as well.  Not to mention my time painting for summer in the city, and my work in AP art senior year...)

I filled in every corner that still gaped with white.  I tried to get a second coat where the walls needed one.  I fixed the edges that had been painted "close enough" with a roller but didn't meet up to the ceiling.  It was hard to explain the burst of motivation, but I this sudden sense of responsibility- like we owed it to Mitzy to make her walls look great.  It was the moment I shifted, the moment I let myself start to care.

By the time I was finishing up, we were all smiles.  I had exchanged a dozen giggly "excuse me"s with people squeezing by my ladder, which had often ended up in a doorway.  Mitzy was showing me all their other projects- the color blocked shelves, the cartoons painted on the wall of the children's room.  Suddenly I was excited for people I had only just met and a cause I hadn't heard of until the week before.  The paintings of Pooh and Curious George on the walls reminded me of the bears I had painted in a Detroit classroom during Summer in the City, and that striking connection reminded me why we do this.  Yes, sometimes we need volunteer hours for school or as an outside obligation.  But the reason people first started giving back- the root of philanthropy- is seeing the difference you can make in someone's life, and the feeling you get from knowing you helped make that happen.

Call it cliche, I don't care.  It's the truth.