The following is a first hand story written by United Way of the Columbia-Willamette's staff member, Donald Braden. It is a wonderfully moving story about the power we all have to make a differences in people's lives.
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| Don Braden volunteering again at an Intel Fun Run event |
I never imagined United Way would be a place I worked at for seven years. In fact, in my initial interview I actually stated that I would probably do this job for 3 maybe 4 years tops. I knew a little bit about United Way and figured it would be a good place to learn about the non-profit community here in Portland since I recently moved here from Ohio.
The job was a great fit; I was having fun and helping people at the same time. It was great that first year. But I eventually fell into a routine and I lost that sense of direct connection to the good work United Way does in the community.
That was the year I arranged to work with Intel on scheduling a week of volunteer activities for their employees. That week was an amazing week. We staged an on-campus bike repair day with the Cycle Center, we built a garden retaining wall at Community Partners for Affordable Housing, sorted food at the Oregon Food Bank facility, worked on framing a Habitat for Humanity House, painted all of the rooms in the White Shield facility run by Salvation Army (a program that sheltered single mothers and their children from potentially dangerous relationships), built a playground at a Child’s Place and painted an elderly gentlemen’s mobile home in a project with Rebuilding Together in Washington County.
Those were just the projects I was able to personally work on shoulder to shoulder with Intel employees by my side that week. But once it was over I quickly returned to the routine. I lost sight of the difference we are making out in the community again.
About a month after the Intel Helping Hands week had ended, I came in to work one morning facing a rather daunting load of phone calls and appointments to make that day. I got off the elevator and checked my mailbox. Mixed in with all of the business printed envelopes there was one that was addressed by hand. When I opened and read that letter, my entire outlook that morning and honestly every morning since changed.
It was a letter from an elderly gentleman named Ralph who was the man who lived in the trailer we painted for the Rebuilding Together project. During the project I was able to talk with Ralph because he needed some help making and handing out iced tea to the busily painting Intel employees. Ralph was grateful to have the help painting his trailer and, despite the fact that I had brought drinks and snacks for all of the volunteers, he insisted on making and serving them some tea himself. But I had forgotten about Ralph once I got back into my work routine until I got that letter.
While I regrettably lost the letter when I moved homes a few years later, the specifics and sentiment of the letter I have never forgotten and stay with me still today. He wrote me this letter because the folks at Rebuilding Together told him that I was the one that organized the project.
Ralph was in his 80s, he grew up in Southern Oregon, was a veteran of the Korean War. He had had two brothers a wife and a child. He talked about how rich his life was. But as he grew older he started losing his family and friends, first his brothers then his old friends passed. A few years earlier his wife passed on and his son had died at a young age before he had had the opportunity to start a family of his own. In the end he was alone.
It was a tough letter to read to have someone expressing this so plainly, so bluntly, it made my heart ache. The second paragraph of the letter began, “I do not share these things to make you feel sorry for me, as I said I have led a rich and fulfilling life. I share these things to tell you that what you are doing is important.”
He continued on to say that while the 3 hour paint job seemed like a simple way to help, but to him and others like him, it meant so much more. He wrote about how the toughest part about getting older and losing those close to him was not simply being alone, it was the total inability to do the little things on his own. There was no way he could have maintained the exterior of his trailer the way he would have liked on his own and he was clearly frustrated by that fact. To make his frusteration worse, he had recently receive a notice from the trailer park that his home would have to be removed if he was unable to get the painting done yet he had no one to help him take care of it.
He told me in the letter that while it was only three hours of volunteer time, he now could look forward to years of being able to live independently in his home and that meant a great deal to him. For that he wanted to write to me particularly as the organizer of the event to tell me that he knew it was a tough job to get people involved in reaching out a helping hand to strangers.
He closed by writing, “so thank you for the work you do, the time you spent helping me and always remember that because of what you do everyday that you are and always will be my hero.”
Ralph’s letter made me realize that if I made that much difference in one person’s life in just 3 hours of time, I can only imagine the real impact almost 8 years of work with United Way has made in the community. Combine that with the impact my coworkers have been able to make happen…incredible.
I wanted to share this story with all of you as workplace campaigns begin throughout Portland and Vancouver to remind us of the impact we truly have on people in our community each and every day. It is not only the field staff that makes this kind of impact. Each and every one of us, working together, is a strong asset for our community.
To steal a line from Ralph, I want all of you to remember that because of the work each of you do everyday you are a hero to a lot of good people throughout our community.
Working for United Way of the Columbia-Willamette is how and this story is why I LIVE UNITED.
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