Being the good SAHMmy I am attempting to become, I volunteered at the girls' school to help with one of the annual fundraisers. First and last time. I should have stuck to my give them money philosophy.
I showed up at the high school's track as that is where the walk-a-thon is supposed to be. Now where to park, I could not tell you as the emailed "information" was hazy, at best. Something about walking up a hill - okay fine. I parked at the elementary school cafeteria and gimped up the hill as my foot was still ravaged from the mole massacre from Tuesday. No matter, I thought, I sent an email so I'm sure they assigned me to a different job so I will make the trek up the hill. As I reached the top of the hill and the race track, I see a sea of royal blue shirts. "Aha! They must know what's going on!" After standing around for about 5 minutes, some of the other volunteers do say hi, but whoever was in charge was clearly not in charge of welcoming the volunteers. "Allright, I'll muster up the courage to approach. Why not?" Just at that moment, a royal, opens up the volunteer book and starts having volunteers sign in, and walks off. No "Hello, thanks for coming." No "here's what you're doing." One royal that I knew from last year (who also discarded my Valentine's decorations that I am not bitter about), barely acknowledged me and them and walked over to another royal to chit chat about, well, nothing important. As I am signing in and printing my name on my volunteer tag, I notice no one else is doing so except the other new SAHMmy in town. Hmmmm... yet they are all talking to each other. Hmmmm.
Finally, a really nice royal figures out we are volunteers and have no idea what the plan is and starts explaining it. Mind you, no name exchanges or whatever. Explains and walks off, not checking if we were the right ones. Okay fine. I will get this done, but I'm going to need help if I'm hauling stuff up and down the hill. I looked at some of the other volunteers. "Darn it - I did not put on makeup, was I supposed to for this activity? I thought it was going to be exercise." "Hmmm... flip flops... were you ACTUALLY planning on volunteering at the WALK-a-thon?" No matter, I plead with another mother non-royal wearing sneakers to help me get the popsicles up and down the hill since the other volunteer (who later shows up in flip flops) is late.
We made the trek into the school and back, but it was obvious no real planning went into any of the logistics of this event. As 8 of us (the 2 haulers chip in) unloaded and cut open the popsicles, the royals milled, around laughing and dancing and socializing with each other. They ignore the onslaught of 3rd graders devouring and stealing extra popsicles as the volunteers succumb to the droves of little hands grasping at the sugary treats. It then dawned on me. There were PLENTY of royal blue shirts to volunteer and do this work, but none of them wanted to help with the less desirable job gave the crap job to the ones that were not in those shirts. Instead, they were the "cheerleaders" for the kiddos, yet, I watched my JD walking all by herself on a lonely stretch of the track with not a single royal cheering her on to the finish line. I abandoned my station for a bit to cheer her on to the rest of the crowd, even though I was "breaking the rules." The royals clustered together around the DJ and parked it there for most of the shift.
As we finished up the shift, the only other royal that was actually helping or directing the volunteers thanked us for our help.
So maybe I am a bit sensitive about the subject, but as a new SAHMmy in a new town, I would hope or expect the PTA or veteran SAHMmies include newer SAHMmies into the fold. If you want the money and the help, that would be the wisest thing to do. As an introvert, this experience was completely uncomfortable and will not happen again. PTA cliques are not for me; I'll donate my money instead of time. If schools want to know why some parents are disconnected with the schools or PTAs eventually fail, this is why. Yes, these are completely voluntary organizations, but perhaps a school staff mentor for the organization would help. It's intimidating for newbies or introverts who want to help the school participate if there is no way to do that.
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