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Nancy Parker Brummett

Nancy Parker Brummett

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Giving

Vintage Volunteers

April 8, 2022 by Nancy 17 Comments

April is National Volunteer Month so I decided it was a good time to honor some volunteers I know.

Virginia scoots around in her wheelchair from table to table in the assisted living facility’s dining room. She volunteered to keep the holders for the sugar packets on each table refilled each day, and she takes her volunteer responsibilities seriously.

Lois comes to my The Hope of Glory class with her knitting in a tote. Each week she shows us the progress she’s making on the next cozy hat she’s knitting for a baby in the hospital. How grateful new parents must be to receive this handmade gift, and even if Lois never gets to see their delighted faces or see the hat on a tiny head, she keeps knitting. She also regularly reads to fellow residents with vision problems, including Joanne.

Joanne always assumed that she would spend her golden years tutoring students and reading to others, but macular degeneration derailed her plans. “I asked the Lord what He would have me do instead,” she explained to our group, “and He told me to pray for the younger generation because they need to be lifted up in prayer. So now that’s my volunteer assignment.”

And my friend Phyllis, 93, has volunteered at a thrift shop that supports community philanthropies for almost 30 years.

It’s a privilege to know older adults who still have the heart to volunteer at a time in their lives when they could so easily sit back and say, “Been there, done that. It’s someone else’s turn to volunteer now.” Rather than be complacent, they see a need and rise up to meet it. They say like Isaiah in Isaiah 6:8, “Here am I. Send me!” I call them vintage volunteers.

Passion. Commitment. Hope.

Recently I was asked to address a group of volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House of Southern Colorado, and I identified what all volunteers need to succeed: passion, commitment, and hope.

Our passion may be whatever makes us extremely happy or extremely angry. Whatever consumes our thoughts and inspires us to sign up or write a check. Once we identify a passion for some cause, we are more likely to volunteer.

And every volunteer needs commitment. It’s commitment that makes us show up for our volunteer shift even when it would be easier to call and cancel. And it’s commitment that moves us to complete any task we see that needs doing, even if it’s not in our volunteer job description.

Without hope, we wouldn’t volunteer at all, would we? We volunteer our time and resources because we hope our involvement will make a difference. And we hope because we care.

If you have elders in your life with time on their hands, help them recall a passion that motivated them in the past. If possible, identify some task, however small, that they can do to feed that passion. Encourage them to be committed to this volunteer effort and instill them with hope that what they do will make a difference. Vintage volunteers have so much to offer, and volunteering in any way adds purpose to their days.

First published in Pikes Peak Senior News.

Filed Under: Take My Hand Again Tagged With: commitment, Giving, Hope, knitting, Older Adults, passion, vintage, volunteers

The Art of Thankful Giving

November 9, 2017 by Nancy 10 Comments

Design by Bree Miller.
Design by Bree Miller.
As Thanksgiving arrives this year our gratitude for what we have seems to run deeper than ever before, doesn’t it? As we look at all the blessings God has placed in our hands, we come to the realization that thanks giving may not be enough. It is rather “thankful giving” that best expresses our gratitude.

I hope to carry this attitude of thankful giving beyond Thanksgiving all the way through the Christmas season this year. While our shopping and wrapping may be scaled down as we focus even more on what matters most, I’m still extremely grateful to have the means to give something to others—and to have others to receive what I give.

Billy Graham said, “God has given us two hands—one to receive with and the other to give with. We are not cisterns made for hoarding; we are channels made for sharing.”

The realization that He has chosen us to be such channels of giving is sometimes humbling and heartrending. One Christmas season my two oldest granddaughters saw princess outfits they loved at a store at the mall. The frilly dresses were ridiculously overpriced, but being the indulgent grandmother I can sometimes be, I went back a few days later and purchased both.

As I was writing out my check the tears started to well up in my eyes. By the time I grabbed my bulky package and left the store they were freely flowing. I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that I was able to buy gifts for my granddaughters when I knew there were many grandmothers who weren’t able to do the same.

Design by Bree Miller.
Design by Bree Miller.

A friend of mine is haunted by a news report she saw. A grandmother in Afghanistan was lying on a dirt floor, too weak to get up and tend to her six grandchildren who sat on the floor around her—their parents unaccounted for. Only God can reconcile the disparity between that woman and those of us who will be able to purchase and wrap gifts for our children and grandchildren for Christmas this year. Certainly the love in her heart is no weaker than that in ours.

“Freely you have received; freely give,”
Jesus said (Matthew 10:8 NIV). It truly is more blessed to give than to receive, and sharing what we have received with those we love may be the greatest form of gratitude. This year let’s make an attitude of thankful giving the invisible “add-on” to every package we wrap.

Filed Under: Back Porch Break Tagged With: Billy Graham, Giving, grandmother, Thankful, Thanksgiving

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