This is a post I had originally written on August 7, 2016. I've since stopped volunteering here, but I recommend everyone volunteer as a method of getting involved in the community.

Alternation

My idea to devote some of my time volunteering started with an urge to add some flavor to my life. It's easy to fall into a pattern of doing the same thing on repeat, and though my job is fulfilling, it can also feel redundant. Unsure where to start, I found VolunteerMatch, which matches prospective volunteers to opportunities in the area. Within a few minutes, I was matched to an organization that aims to provide resources for Vietnamese-Americans in the Seattle area, and they needed help with their website. "Hey nice! What a match! I’m a web developer!"

I fired off an email, and went to bed that night excited about the prospects. You get the best rest when you’re happy.

Truth is, I was looking for a volunteer organization which I could use my technical expertise to help out. I figured that my abilities were valuable in this era, and volunteer organizations could really use some of these super special skills I possess. Deep down though, I know I’m just one of tens of thousands of people who do what I do in Seattle. Such is life in the tech hub of the Northwest.

Misallocation

I didn’t end up doing the website. As soon as I got to the first meeting for the web team, I learned that there were six people on this team! What organization could be so lucky to have a team of six to build out its website. Four of us had experience with web development, there was also a graphic designer as well as someone who was building out the content. Now, if there’s one thing I hate most in life, its poor resource allocation.

So I pivoted, and told them I want to help teach English. That is, after all, one of the core services that this organization offers. Think about it. The organization has only a few activities that it performs for the Vietnamese-American community:

After school programs for children with working parents
Teaching English
Teaching newly landed Vietnamese how to pass the citizenship test
Programs for teaching adults how to use computers
An open computer lab

Nobody runs the computer lab, it’s just open. You’ve got a few volunteers hanging out with the kids with the after school programs, but it’s often just one or two. You’ve got one volunteer teaching English. One teaching a Facebook class. And one teaching the citizenship class. Now… they’ve got an executive director and her assistant, a board of five people. An accountant. A grant writer. A community outreach specialist. Six people working on the website. And many others in "administration". A bit of resource misallocation!

Liberation

So, what’s going on here? That’s when I realized that the reason these people are volunteering is because it looks good on their resume. It really does! Volunteer organizations will often accept any help they can get, so you can come in with very little experience. Then, you can build your experience, meanwhile you can tell people about the social good you're providing. That’s a solid combination! I mean, I don’t want to short sell the volunteers now, they’re still doing a very good thing. But fundamentally, part of the reason they want to work there is because they need to build out their profile.

I really don’t need to work here. No one is ever going to look at my resume and say “Oh, and you taught ESL? That seems useful”. I work in web development, and I really don’t think that helps. I’m not learning managerial tricks or communicative skills, I’m just learning how to be a patient, open minded person.

What I came here to say is that this is absolutely liberating. I came home after a meeting and complained to my wife about how inefficient they run their meetings. It felt like no one knew what they were doing, or who could make decisions. It was a total slog. I told her that I wished I could just step-in, take control, and say, “Ok, this is what we need to decide. Who can make the decision, what do we need to do it?”. I would be concerned about overstepping boundaries at work. But then I thought, who cares? What are they going to do? Fire me? So what? I’m working for free anyways. There’s literally nothing they could do to me that would truly affect my well-being.

Separation

This prompted me to think. I’m devoting two nights a week to this, why? Here’s why: I’ve been in their shoes. I know what it’s like to come in blind to a different culture. I shipped myself off to France, all alone, for a year when I was 17 years old. By wondrous luck, I fell into the hands of a beautiful family who cared for me deeply, and had the patience to teach me the language and bear with all my quirks. My wife's family is all Vietnamese, and they are absolutely wonderful people. I have never met a culture so welcoming and caring. Many of these people are abandoning all they know and love, for the hope of a better life for their family in a cold, foreign place.

It’s so easy for cultures to naturally segregate. There are Vietnamese people in the Seattle area who have lived here for more than 10 years, and haven’t learned any English. Why should they? They live in the Vietnamese neighborhoods, shop at the Vietnamese grocers, go to the Vietnamese cafes, and in doing so only interact with other Vietnamese. They’ve built a miniature replica of their hometown across the ocean, but over time, it becomes their prison. And the rest of us miss out on what they have to offer. I want them to feel like they are unbounded.

So much of our culture is embedded in our language, and sometimes you just need someone with a smile on their face who’s willing to sit down with you and explain what something means, and help you say it right. If I can make one person feel a bit more welcome in their new home, then my time is worth it.

This is why I volunteer.