I'm very fortunate that I don't usually have to go to the office on Fridays, so I try very hard to start life each week on Thursday evenings. I do believe that most life begins on Fridays even though most calendars start on Monday. Yesterday, I had to work. All day. At the office. Even past 5pm. And yes, yesterday WAS a Friday. This will totally screw up my inner calendar.
Let me back up a bit. I have the most AMAZING job. It's part time, mostly. I do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done and most of the time I'm able to schedule it so that I don't go to the office on Fridays. Sometimes it doesn't work out - especially when we have a big event coming up or if an activity actually runs from Friday morning through Saturday evening - but I will usually do whatever it takes to keep Fridays free. From work, at least.
On Fridays I usually clean house, or work in the yard, or do some kind of house project. So it's not like I'm sitting around eating bonbons watching Lifetime movies. First off, I'm not a bonbons and Lifetime kind of gal. I'm more of a popcorn with Tabasco and parmesan cheese and The Wire kind of gal. Second off, I love the results that housework and gardening achieve: making a home.
But yesterday was different. I had gone into the office on Thursday after NOT being at the office for 2 weeks. It was "the holidays" after all, plus it's a mostly dead time in the programs where I work. Today (Saturday) we have a reunion for the folks who have been through the 9 years that we have had the youth leadership program. We have almost 300 young people who have participated so far, and we usually get around 30 folks who are able to attend the reunion each year. It's a fun event to see these young leaders again and catch up with what they've been doing since they graduated from our program. I don't really do that much for the event except figure out the holes in the menu and help the hosts set up and clean up.
But we also have a program day on Tuesday, which combines the adult leadership class with the youth leadership class for a session on the human services agencies in our community. Part of the day involves sending out 72 people in small groups to 12 different agencies using the public transportation system.
Our community has a public bus system, but people love their cars around here so I really know very few people who use the system. I would TOTALLY use the system if I didn't have to drive around 6 miles to get to the closest bus stop. And most of the folks in our programs have never even thought of using the bus. So yesterday was spent using the "trip planner" function of the bus system's website to figure out how to get each group to their destination. Truly, the public transportation system is a HUGE part of the human services safety net equation.
On Tuesday, we will give 36 adults and 36 high school juniors a behind the scenes look at the human services agencies that serve our community. Which ones will take the knowledge gained during the day to correct some of the disparities that cause people to need those services? Which ones will attend a reunion in a few years and report that they are leading the charge to address an injustice or need? These thoughts are what make this job so rewarding. We are making a community.
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