When I was younger, I spent a good amount of my time in the summer sitting behind milk boxes waiting in my neighbors’ yard at the top of our cul-de-sac. It was St. Louis weather- which typically translates to about 110 heat index. We sat with watered down lemonade (the ice had long since melted) and waited not so patiently for a car to drive by. And typically that’s exactly what they did- drive right on by. Our lemonade stand had a higher purpose than buying the much envied bouncy balls that sat right out of reach at our dollar bill store. Usually, any money we made went into the hands of our local humane society. We sold our lemonade for about a nickel and usually sold about ten glasses to our patrons, the neighbors, our parents, and the mailman. The day ended most often with us, hot, sweaty and giddy and sticky from all the glasses of lemonade we snuck along the way. We would proudly present approximately fifty hard-earned cents to our mother (a major humane society volunteer) which seemed fairly substantial after nine hours of work. Looking back at that simplistic desire to help reminds me of what truly matters in volunteering. I don’t care how little of a difference you feel like you’re making. Sometimes you spend hours fund raising and walk away with 500 dollars, 50 dollars, or fifty cents. No matter what you made a drop in the bucket, and sometimes it takes a whole lot of drops to make a difference.
If I saw a couple of ten year old kids braving the weather to make a couple bucks for charity, nothing would make me tell them to give it up and try something else. No, I think I’d pull over and buy a glass of their watery lemonade then drive away smiling, optimistic about where this world is going.
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