The joy of giving

My voice croaked. It wasn’t a quiet sour-note hidden by the angelic voices of my classmates. No, it was a loud mid-sentence clunker that was there for everyone to hear.

I’ve never had much of a singing voice. My stutter as a kid certainly played a part. I’ve just never been able to control my voice or carry a tune. To top it off, my voice lacks strength and rhythm.

“This land is your land, and this land is my land,
From California to the New York island,
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters,
This land was made for you and me.”

I sang “to the New York Island” and something altogether strange and almost metallic-like came out of my mouth. I barely knew where New York was on the map in front of our classroom. Suddenly, there it was, messing me up. I was embarrassed and considered stopping, but our teacher in the back of the room motioned for me to continue. If left to my own devices, I’m sure I would’ve run out the back door. However, his encouragement pushed me forward. The smiles from the audience members, residents of the elder-care facility where we had volunteered to sing, also helped.

Giving of ourselves

Each year, the U.S. celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day on the third Monday in January as an opportunity for Americans to come together to celebrate Dr. King’s life and contributions to the civil rights movement. A big part of his legacy is how the federal holiday has become a Day of Service. I can’t think of a better legacy.

When I hear people talk about community service, I find that I often think back on elementary school and how our sixth grade teacher convinced our class to lend our voices to the community. We sang several times that year at nursing care facilities and the local hospital.

Our teacher told that us that we might be little and too inexperienced to pick up a hammer. If asked to paint, we probably would have made a bigger mess. We didn’t have any money to give to others. Those things were up to our parents.

But we still had gifts to give. We could lend others our voices.

“When the sun come shining, then I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving, and the dust clouds rolling
The voice was chanting as the fog was lifting
This land was made for you and me.”

Giving what you have

We were a small choir and the songs we sang were old folk songs like This Land is Your Land; America, The Beautiful; and God Bless America. (In reflection, I can’t help but wonder if my teacher wasn’t a rebel because he mixed in old protest songs like Blowin in the Wind and We Shall Overcome with patriotic and religious hymns.)

When we collected our things and prepared to go home, an older man stopped me and thanked myself and a few of my friends for our visit. When I got home, I asked my mom why the man was so grateful. I was shocked that he had a tear in his eyes. I guess I was especially surprised because I could tell all the mistakes that my friends and I made. To me, we were just a bunch of kids.

However, my mom just smiled back at me. She knew — she he knew that we brightened someone’s day.

“This land is your land, and this land is my land
From California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.”

Long last impacts

It’s challenging to put a number on volunteerism in the U.S. and across the globe. How do you get a handle on something so abstract and big like that?

AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteerism, estimated in November that more than 75.7 million people – or 28.3 percent of Americans – formally volunteered through an organization in 2023, giving more than 4.99 billion hours of service. They estimate that the 75.7 million people represent a 5.1 percentage points increase from 2022 to 2023.

It’s hard to pooh-pooh numbers like this. The power of volunteerism and community service, both big and small efforts, whether as part of a MLK Day of Service Project or throughout the year, make a huge difference.

Yes, you never know who will be touched.

And oh yea, be sure to sing it loud: Community service makes a difference!