In addition to the students we had a photographer and a writer from Virginia Tech in attendance. They spent the afternoon documenting the class and talking to folks. At one point Lori Greiner, the writer, asked me what volunteerism meant to me. I had an uhh...uhh... moment and then babbled out something totally disjointed about tradition, giving back to the community, self sufficiency, and god knows what. Because I don't think of what I'm doing as volunteer work. I don't really think about it at all. I just enjoy doing it and having a venue to pass it on to others so we can have fun doing it together. And yup, there's that little piece of me that does a happy dance while waving the one finger salute at Big Food with both hands.
Michael and I have talked about what we do as Master Gardener/Food Volunteers. We do have an answer to that question, I just spaced it. Lori, if you're reading this, here it is:
We can give a family a sack of food and they'll eat for a week.
But if we teach them how to garden
and cook and preserve
they will be able to feed themselves forever.
That's what volunteering means to me.
