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View from the ERV:
One Perspective on Volunteering
by Emmie Moffitt
When I woke up on January 15, 2007, I got out of bed quickly, faster than I normally do. (Usually I have to be persuaded to get up.) It was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I was going to Germantown, Philadelphia to participate in a community service project with a family friend, Drew Alexander. (Drew, an avid volunteer and tremendously kind person, was the one who told me about this project and took me there. He is an amazing role-model and an inspiration. He’s also really nice.) The volunteer project was organized by the Red Cross to honor Dr. King.
When I was on my way there with Drew driving through Philadelphia, I got so eager I was practically bouncing in my seat. When we got there, I saw a big white tent. It wasn't a tent that you would sleep in. It was more like a...circus tent. I was anxious and couldn't wait to get started doing something, ANYTHING!!! I followed Drew around after meeting a few people, and one of them from the Red Cross was telling Drew to go find an outlet so we could have light inside the truck. We finally found one, and I began to do something that I would be doing for the rest of the day--serving drinks and snacks out the window of the back of the big truck that the Red Cross calls the Emergency Response Vehicle, or ERV for short.
At first it wasn't very busy at all, so I could just look out the window and see what was going on around the other places in the tent. There were so many people doing so many helpful things. There were people packing backpacks (which I had been told were emergency kits for people in the area who needed them. There were people with laptops who were teaching other people how to use computers and the Internet. It was then that I began to think about what other people across the country would think about what we were doing to memorialize such a wonderful man and what he did during his life. What a great way to celebrate Martin Luther King Day: volunteering and helping out, showing that we now can respect people’s differences.
After a while, there was no more time to look out the window. The line was so long, I couldn't even see the end of the it. By the end of the morning, my arms hurt from filling up cups of hot chocolate. Still, it was fun, and it felt good helping other people. I'll bet everyone who volunteered there felt the same way. Martin Luther King Day shouldn't be the only day that people volunteer to help. In fact, I think I'll ask Drew when the next volunteer project is!
Afterwards, I felt very good, and I felt like I did something very helpful. I saw so many people there, people who cared, just like Dr. King cared and knew that there are very good people in the world, and I was surrounded by them.
Emmie Moffitt, age 9, lives in Glenolden, PA.
