Community Service- I Recommend It!

There is nothing quite like it. The warm and useful feeling you get when you help others or help kids to help others.. I love it. The Spanish teaching part of my job is fun but obviously quite repetitive. The community service part is always a treat. Besides organizing school wide drives etc., I get to try to inculcate little kids with a sense of service and the privilege of being in a position to do so. We just had a school wide drive for OIC and watching my fourth graders assemble dozens of school supply kits for children in Iraq and Afghanistan is just too sweet. How the hell will I ship 1000 lbs of supplies to the Kansas warehouse for overseas shipment is a whole other logistical nightmare.
On another note, I got to go back to Street Squash yesterday for some tutoring. The kids there are great. Most of them are screwed, stuck in crap Harlem schools (that many of them travel to from other boroughs because they are actually better than the ones in their neighborhoods!), live with fractured families, have no role models.... but they all drag their butts to Street Squash 2, 3 and even 4 times a week because some adult in their lives convinced them that education is the way out. I wish I had more time to dedicate to them. If you live in New York City and have even 2 hours a month to tutor (any day of the week but Sun), be a mentor, or help a senior with his/her college applications, contact them! I promise you the rewarding feeling will last longer than eating a delicious piece of cheese or chocolate or sex or yoga or whatever else makes you feel good:)