Inspired to Serve
When you believe in a cause, you express devotion. That’s what our Truckee Community Christmas board members do. But there’s a much bigger picture to consider too. We find ourselves joined by our drive chairs and so many others – volunteers, groups that adopt families, community members and local businesses.
We volunteer to open our minds and hearts and invest our skills and energy to meet a need that exists among our own town’s residents. It’s a short term project for me each year.
Finding myself at the helm as board president, I’m realizing that one of the things I experience being involved with this annual humanitarian effort, is that I get to feel more deeply what it’s like to be human.
In the months that come before our mid-December distribution day, everyone working with our board members are filled with direction.
Our commitment positively affects us as much as those we serve. Devotion inspires us. It encompasses enthusiasm and an expectant idea about how we can make things just a little bit better for our most vulnerable neighbors. It’s a simple but mighty thing to have a village take care of its own.
Truckee can appear to be a very prosperous community. The unseen truth is that we have homeless residents, and parents who work in low-wage service jobs, and seniors who live at the poverty line. We have single teenage moms trying to support their babies.
Success stories are told on the faces of our recipients who are sincerely grateful to receive an age appropriate toy for each child in their family, a grocery store gift card and for some, a warm jacket—it’s heartfelt to witness.
By providing a small token of help, we send with that a larger message that says, we care about you. That’s what it’s all about, for me.
~Katie Shaffer