I took a couple hours on Saturday to read to some underprivileged kids at a local community center/church, Resurrection Church.

http://resurrectionchurchofny.com/

It’s a pretty great part of religion that they are often the centers of communities and therefore do a lot of good work for its most needy, both in faith and in action. There are a lot of things to be desired from organized religion, but it’s a disservice to discount the benefits.

As a community center, we were only one of three or four services that were being held, though I truthfully cannot remember what the other ones were for. I think something related to senior care? There were probably 35-40 volunteers in total, and of that, eight including me were signed up to read.

We were taken to the “green room” for the stage. [They had a stage for musical performances and it was a pretty legit set up. I learned later from the someone with the church that their church had a guy get a record deal from Atlantic records for a jazz album, which was pretty cool]

At first there were three sisters. Other kids would continue to trickle in, eventually totaling 10ish.

With shameless pride, I want to say I was the first choice reading partner. The three sisters all wanted to read with me. Eventually the oldest moved to a different partner and we had to ask one of the younger ones to read with someone else with the promise of switching and reading with me later. I spent a lot of my own childhood uncomfortably unpopular, and this small amount of validation was a nice compliment, especially since I like kids.

Both were big fans of Clifford, and we had a great time reading about his adventures. We also discussed the difficulties and advantages of having a dog as big as a house [spoilers: kind of cool, but we agreed that it was highly impractical. How would you feed him? He’d never be allowed anywhere. And he could crush you. 2/5, fun for a little bit, long term cannot imagine it being workable.]

As our time came to an end and we prepared to head back, the middle one and I joined hands. She whispered to me in the dim shuffling of all of us leaving, “I want to see my mom.”. I figured she’d be back in the main room, so I said we were on our way to meet her. Her quiet reply was lost in the noise and the 3 feet that separated my ear from her mouth. I didn’t push for a clarification, and we followed everyone else out.

In the main room, I was greeted very cheerful and graciously by the sisters’ foster mom. After a little bit of chatting, I would learn that she actually fosters about 30 kids and she was very grateful for us sharing our love of reading with her kids. I was struck by how kind she was, not only to provide for so many kids, but even to us for the little time we did spend to volunteer.

But even more, I was struck by how my own assumptions had misconstrued the young girls question. I’m not going to pretend I know the exact emotional level she had admitting how much she wanted to see her mom, truthfully, I just don’t know. But I did learn that I ought to be very grateful for my own lot in life and I should not assume that everyone else had the same experiences.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the time I spent that Saturday. I highly expect I will volunteer again in that center. I would like to donate some of my old child things to the church as well.

And I called my mom, to talk and remind her I loved her.