Since I'm finally done with university (for now), I decided that 2011 would be the year that I could begin donating a bit of my time for volunteer work. I wanted to be able to do a variety of things, but also something that had a flexible schedule so that I could pick my times around other activities. Fortunately, through a Meetup.com group that I used to hang out with, I heard about Hands On Orlando. They are a volunteer organization that works with a number of charities all around the Orlando area. They find projects that need volunteers, then sign up the volunteers and have them meet at the right place and time.
I found this really appealing, because this way I can work with different charities and different people and I can do a different kind of activity each time if I want to. They do have some events that recur every week or every month, but they do special one-time events like park cleanups or painting someone's house, too.
My first project was a dog park cleanup. There's a small park, actually not terribly far from my house, that has a little dog park attached to it called Pawmosa Park (part of Plumosa Park). Three or four times a year, Hands On Orlando brings volunteers to clean up the pathways and replace the mulch in the pet area. We spent three hours shoveling and hauling and pruning and hauling and picking up debris... and hauling. It was a lot of hard work, but I actually had fun with it. I guess some of the teenage volunteers were less than thrilled, but we managed to get whole lot of mulch spread despite that!
Here's what we saw when we all first arrived at the park...
Once we got started, I grabbed a shovel and dug in! Well, me and about 10 other people. Eventually, we got it down to this.
And then it was gone!
It was tough for me, since I'm not the fittest of felines, and I hurt like hell for the next couple of days, but I am very glad that I helped out and I would do it again. Fortunately, my next project doesn't seem to involve shoveling or getting terribly dirty - but more about that later.
For anyone local to Orlando, please visit Hands On Orlando to get info on the events and how you can help.
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