By Turtle
10/17/21
It often comes up in conversation, “You seem to volunteer a lot. Why?” I ask them to be specific. Why do I volunteer? Or why do I volunteer so much?
The first question is easy. I was raised to volunteer. As third-generation immigrants, my family always made it clear that we were expected to give back to our local community. I started when I was nine. I’m 51 now. I’ve volunteered in Brownies, 4-H, school functions, VFW, Grays Harbor County Fair Board, ASB, Honor Society, Humane Society, Triangle Square, Rainbow Coalition, OUT in the Park, PBS, Metropolitan Community Church, Center for Spiritual Living, WashPIRG, as a clown, as a DJ, Compass Housing, Challenge Air, and most recently the CSPC. These are just the names I remember off the top of my head.
Other reasons I volunteer are to meet people as I tend to be an introverted hermit and it helps pull me out into interacting. I also love helping and learning new skills. I’m much more well-rounded as a human being and experience a much deeper level of empathy. Sometimes I volunteer purely from a social justice need to be active in moving our community forward in a positive fashion. I’ve canvassed for signatures for WashPIRG, answered phones for PBS, met with congressional representatives, raised money for good causes like Wolfhaven. At times, I just feel out of sync with the world and volunteering helps me feel useful. Those people I meet become a network of support too!
There is so much above and beyond that though. Here is where the “side effects” to volunteering weigh in. People have used the ripples from a pebble tossed into a pond, but I’d challenge the imagery as notably too small.
I, and the many other volunteers over the 20+ years of this organization, believe deeply in the Mission of the Center for Sex Positive Culture. Although I no longer identify as a conservative Catholic, I was still quite locked up when I joined the CSPC. Through education, mentorship, role models, observation, access to more inclusive information and support, I now have an acceptance of myself and know who I am. I am a Pangender, Pansexual, Poly, Sapiosexual, Sufferer submissive… for starters. I’m far more okay with my body too. I’m not judgmental of others, I can just accept them where they are and be supportive when those morph. I’ve released shame, guilt, self-revulsion. I experienced a Becoming.
We provide a space for people to shed the shackles of the past, the shame they have been conditioned to accept, and models that they've been told are all that they are allowed to be.
I’ve seen this journey happen to others. I’ve lent a hand when needed. I’ve had many people tell me quietly in between moments of stillness about how they don’t think this could’ve happened anywhere else but a magical dream like the CSPC. I’ll keep volunteering in big and small ways, whatever ways I am capable of for as long as I am able to pave the way for those who will come to take my place, and continue this grand odyssey we are all on in Becoming.