Cleaning someone’s dirty loo is not volunteering to help needy

I was excited when I saw that the Public Relations club was inviting other students to help serve food Saturday at the local food pantry.

I quickly signed up, ready to give up a couple of hours of my Saturday for those in need.

I arrived with a positive attitude. When I walked in, I filled out a quick survey. While I was doing so, more volunteers kept arriving, all with a positive look much like my own.

Then the front room began rapidly filling up. There were roughly 15 volunteers, and only about seven people eating.

The food was cooked, and the people had been served. We had nothing to do.

We were told that we could grab something to eat. I did not feel hungry, so instead I stood against a wall waiting for direction from someone, anyone.

Finally, after about 10 minutes of standing around gawking at one another, Sharon Pile, director of the facility, told several volunteers that she had some work for us in her office.

At this point, she asked us to organize her desks, dust the ceiling fan, and wipe things down with Clorox wipes.

Then, looking directly at me, she told me that I could clean her bathroom, and explained to me where I could get some gloves.

Grumbling, several of us set to work doing the office work that could have been accomplished without us.

Ten of us were stuffed in a tiny office, almost unable to move, doing work that we hadn’t at all expected.

After wiping down a filing cabinet, I placed the Clorox wipes on her desk and left. No one was going to miss me, and I certainly wasn’t going to miss that.

Now, perhaps it’s not the nicest thing for me to say, but I have to.

Seriously? I signed up to help serve food to people who needed it.

I did not sign up to clean someone’s office and bathroom. I’m certain that she could have done that on her own.

I left the facility feeling disgusted and annoyed. I had really hoped to do something that would have an impact on our community, not play maid.

After I left, I spent at least an hour complaining about what had happened. Several people simply told me that at least I should be grateful that there were more volunteers than people who needed to be fed.

However, I was still left feeling annoyed at the fact that so many like myself had signed up with the hopes that they would be doing something that really mattered, and ended up cleaning some random person’s office.

This experience made me realize that the next time I want to do some sort of charity, I should really look into it first, and I encourage others to do the same.