A Leaving Volunteer's Thoughts

Recently a good friend of mine and a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, decided that he could best continue his service and commitment to others and himself by heading back to the States and embarking on the next phase of his life. Before he left we had a conversation that has stuck with me ever since. He talked about how we as people have to make a commitment and uphold our duty to make our own communities better.

I have been thinking about this a lot recently and while I do get a lot of great feedback from friends, family and others about my commitment to move to Morocco and offer up whatever help I can through the Peace Corps, I think it's important to not to overlook the commitments million of people in America have taken to make their own communities better. While I am lucky enough to have been born into a family where I don't have to support a financial burden, take care of sick family members or one of the many thousands of other reasons people don't get to move as freely as I, I think that the every-day commitments people make back home should be just as celebrated.

My move is more dramatic, sure, and surely involves a more significant amount of TV show watching, I think the other work is important to and I wanted to make sure that point is noted.

Our communities are our responsibilities and one of things that makes America great and one of the reasons we have what we have is our commitment to each other and making our lives better. This includes parents volunteering at schools, riding your bike all the way across America to raise awareness for people with disabilities and participating in local Stream Team events to clean out local waterways. All ways that people volunteer their time and effort to make an organization or a community better should be noted and celebrated.

I was raised in a household where volunteering was part of the daily dialogue and it was something my parent's valued greatly but there are also a lot of sacrifices made in-order to be able to volunteer in the ways we want; I am grateful that I have those opportunities.

I find my greatest happiness when I am volunteering for a cause I care about and I know millions (if not hundreds of millions) people in America do too.

I wanted to take this time to personally thank and and all of you who volunteer, in whatever capacity to make your schools, your town, your family and your community better. American would not be the amazing place it would be without everyone's commitment to that and I think you deserve to be recognized.

Thank you for your hard work and keep it up, there is always someone and some cause that needs YOUR help!