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Note: Conexión Américas held a Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon last week for the men and women who give their time and talents to help make the work we do possible. This essay is by volunteer Patrick Cate.

 

By Patrick Cate

“We know that empathy is impossible without imagination. Imagination, however, is impossible without wonder, and wonder is impossible without awe. Empathy represents the deepest expression of awe, and understandably is regarded as the most spiritual of human qualities” -Jeremy Rifkin

Volunteering is an action of empathy, the process by which we realize our own sense of what it is to be a human being by experiencing it through, and with, others. Without it, I simply would lack the other half of me I didn’t even know existed — the half that resides in the people that I have been blessed to meet over the past year working for the Family Resource Center run by Conexión Américas at Cole Elementary School.

Helping out at Cole this year, I seemingly spent my time teaching classes, planning lessons, running errands, sharing lunch, writing newsletters, but I know better. What I know now, and could not have known before, was that I was learning what it means to love and to be loved, that strangers are friends, that dignity gives rise to dignity and that volunteering is not a diversion, but a way of life.

These are the lessons I can only learn through sharing, and not by sharing money, or energy or effort, but by sharing the little bit of myself that scared me the most to give away. But I always get back tenfold. I learned from my mentor Cristina how to be compassionate and generous of the heart, that problems are opportunities, that I am wanted, that we matter, that everyone matters, and that trying to make a living giving ourselves to others is to live in the first place; everything else comes later.

It has affected every aspect of my life.

From now on, I no longer look at neighbors, my mother, my friends, my dinner, my education, my language, without seeing it through the eyes of the students I grew to know and love so dearly. In this way I bring back home the lives of others for everyone to share. It has inspired me to chase down my own dreams, and to be honest, I didn’t even know that was possible.

For someone considering volunteering, I tell them it isn’t what you think and thank heavens. It’s that and vastly more. It caught me on fire, and it’ll catch you, too. So get ready and get started. It’s the opportunity to give yourself a chance to live the rich life, to stretch out your time on earth by giving to other people, to see the best in each other, to know where you live and to make it our home, to make friends, and to give ourselves a fighting chance.

So what are you waiting for?

Patrick Cate is a recent graduate of MTSU who will, this fall, begin the study of Community Development and Action at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of Education. He loves people, running, poetry, and Earl Grey Tea with just a bit of honey.