"Once You Choose Hope, Anything's Possible." ~Christopher Reeve

This week has been crazy.  Most of our volunteers are college students, and this week is their Spring Break.  A few have come to volunteer anyway, but for the most part, the program has pretty much been run by some of the older kids.  This gives me hope for its future, that even at their young age, they're willing to step up and take responsibility.  Just so long as it's not expected of them too often.

One of the kids in the Yellow Group (4th and 5th graders) saw the KONY 2012 video online and asked the program director if she could run art for the week and use it as an opportunity to teach the other kids in her group about what's happening in Central Africa.

Yesterday, I gave them a quick summary of what's going on while the Yellow Group started drawing posters related to KONY 2012.  Today, they watched the video and discussed how it made them feel.


She's in elementary school!  And she's rallying her classmates around a serious issue that she's become passionate about!  And she's growing up in what was one of the poorest urban areas in our nation BEFORE the economy crashed!  That's what I call hope.

"Hope is Faith Holding Out its Hand in the Dark." ~George Iles

She came!  The high school student came to the training this afternoon!

I wondered on the way home why I was so excited about this.  Only part of it could be explained by that she found out about Pomona Hope because of my post on idealist.org.  Also only part was explained by the fact that she's from an area that we haven't broken into yet, and she might be our way into that.

I finally came to the realization that I'm excited about all the new volunteers because Pomona Hope isn't the kind of place that you volunteer for a few times and then never come back to just because you don't feel like it or you're not required by class to come anymore.  I've been a part of those programs too, and you don't want to get too attached to any of the kids or the program itself, because you'll probably never get to see them again.

I'm excited both for the volunteers and about the volunteers because they're like new additions to the family.  Pomona Hope is very good about leadership development, among the kids, among the parents, and yes, among the volunteers.  That's one thing that it definitely has over other after school programs.

How does it do this?  It expects more from you.

The volunteers are expected to be there consistently.  At least once a week.  We tell them that it's better for the kids to have the consistency (which is totally true!), but I've only recently realized that it's a way to keep them coming back and stepping up.  I've seen so many college students step through these doors and go on to become volunteer coordinators and interns and I've seen several graduate and go on into a life of ministry.  I've seen some of our kids grow up in the program and come back to be volunteers and encourage the younger kids to follow their lead.  One of these kids I've recently seen become a Pomona Princess (I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about this!).

Before I started volunteering here, I never would have thought of myself as a leader.  And, quite frankly, it took a couple years for me to even admit it was possible.  But I've since found that in order to get leaders, you have to model a good leader and then give someone the chance to be one by giving them some kind of responsibility and having faith in them.

To some of you, this might not be a huge breakthrough.  For others, this approach never would have occurred to them.  For the community served by Pomona Hope, the latter was certainly more likely.

For myself personally, it kind of came intuitively (once I was in a position of leadership), but only just now am I able to verbalize it. 

But back to the matter at hand: Volunteers at Pomona Hope are another part of the family.  On a daily basis, that family consists of the kids of the after school program, their parents, the staff, and the volunteers.  And having new volunteers come in is like having a new sibling come into the world-- only, you're guaranteed to have something of a personality trait in common with them.

Hope is Putting Faith to Work When Doubting Would Be Easier.

This morning, I got an email from someone I had never met before.  I realize that's normal for everyone to find in their SPAM folder (or occasionally in their inbox when the junk filter fails them), but this was a directed email, specifically for me.

It was from a high school student, from where, I don't know.  But she knew my email address and she was asking about how she might go about volunteering at Pomona Hope (which means she also knew I'd be the one to talk to).

Who knows if she'll follow through?  But for a high school student to take that step with no prompting and no previous connection to me is very brave.  Actually, it's not just brave, it's faith.

If you've ever received a mission letter from me in the past, you'll have already read my views on faith.  But here goes again:

Faith is risk.  This is something I learned from my favorite Bible professor in college and it has followed me around ever since.  To better explain this, I remember a story about the difference between belief and faith that I once heard.  

There was once a world-renowned tight-rope walker who was set to walk a tight rope across Niagra Falls while pushing a wheel barrow.  He asked one of the spectators if she believed that he could do it without falling, and she replied "yes."  His response was to tell her to get in.

It was a risk for this high school student to even try to step out of her comfort zone to help some kids she's probably never met.  I never would have considered it in high school.  After subbing for high school for 4 years, I think I can safely say that most high school students wouldn't consider it "cool".  But this girl found Pomona Hope, thought (if even for a split second) that she might like to volunteer there, and then wrote an email to the person she found was the best to ask.

Maybe not a big risk to some, but considering our continued need for more volunteers to offer the best after school program possible to our kids, maybe it is a big risk for most.

I hope she comes to the training tomorrow.  I'd really like to meet her.

UPDATE:  She's from a high school several towns away (still no idea how she heard about us... as far as I know we don't have any connections there) and she probably can't make tomorrow night's training, but we're working on figuring out when she CAN train. :-)