Senior service project

After a long day at work yesterday, I arrived home only to be told by my second born son, that I needed to get back into the car and head to his Senior Service night. Did I mention that it was at 7pm in downtown Los Angeles? Needless to say, I was not happy at the thought and yes I know, service is what I love but back in the car I went…because I also love my son, but boy was I grumpy.

However, not for long. Quickly, my grumpiness faded as I listened to these 17-year old boys sharing their experiences about their various month-long service projects throughout Los Angeles. My sons class of 303 young men practice their school’s motto of being “Men for Others” by spending one month committed to service. Some of the stories shared were about living on Skid Row for the month, working with victims of domestic violence, being at Homeboy Industries with rehabilitating gang members and on and on they went.

What made my grumpiness fade was to see the shift in each of these incredible young men as they learned from doing….the power of serving others. While I was incredibly proud of my son, his month-long commitment to inner city children and their low-income school, I was beyond proud to be a tiny part of an organization that makes a huge difference in our world….and more importantly practices what they preach in raising Men For Others.

Charity Matters.

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As parents we live for those moments that stop us in our tracks. The moments that take our breath away, make our heart swell, our eyes water and that we beam with pride that in some way we have been a part of another person who makes this world a better place because they are in it. Last week I sat in our high school auditorium with 322 sets of parents who all experienced that moment.

We were all there to celebrate our son’s Senior service projects. After Christmas break, every member of the senior class spends three weeks working full-time with a partnered non-profit. My oldest son, who has already spent over 700 hours in Watts with inner-city children could not possibly fathom what he would get out of this experience, as he already felt that he knew what it was like to serve.

He was wrong. When he was assigned to work with mentally handicapped children and adults, he had no idea what to do. Three days a week he worked with the children on their play yard, in class, fed them blended food with straws and loved it. He found joy and smiles with the kids and a true appreciation for his health and new understanding that joy can be found with the simplest kindness.

However, the other two days he was with mentally handicapped adults who were simply left in a room with no activities, no inter-action, nothing. He and his friends decided they needed to make this experience fun for their “clients” as they were called. So they broke out the karaoke machine and began to sing (which by the way is not his gift). Yet, bad voice and all, his clients loved it! The more these 18-year-old boys sang, the more smiles and joy they gave and received.

So as we all sat in the auditorium hearing a few of these stories from our sons, each of us had that moment of incredible pride at the amazing young men, we had raised. While every boy’s story was different, every message was the same. The more you give, the more you get and a smile goes a long way in making someone’s day better.

Charity Matters.

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