Between Hurricane Katrina and the holidays, donations of time, money and goods were at an all time high at the end of 2005, and I was no exception to this trend. Working only part-time these days, I have an unprecedented amount of free time for all kinds of things I never used to be able to do, and volunteer work is one of them. Using VolunteerMatch and Google—I actually don’t remember which got me there—I found my way to N Street Village. Truth be told, I found a number of places where I would have liked to volunteer, but N Street Village was the most volunteer-friendly organization in two important ways. First, they responded to my email. At least three organizations in the area failed to acknowledge my inquiries at all. Second, they schedule three orientations a month, on weeknights and weekends, making it hard not to go. They’ve been around since 1973, and they offer an amazing array of services in line with this mission:
N Street Village empowers homeless and low-income women to claim their highest quality of life by offering a broad spectrum of services and advocacy in an atmosphere of dignity and respect. The Village also provides affordable rental housing for low and moderate-income individuals and families.
At the orientation with David Westervelt, you begin to get a sense of what this means. For one thing, N Street Village (NSV) offers low-barrier services. What that means is that a woman can walk into NSV and get warm or eat a meal or talk to someone without having to prove anything. She doesn’t have to make less than a certain amount of money, or be out of work, or believe in god, or be in a drug program, or have no family in the area. (“Hillary Clinton could walk in and have breakfast.”) So no woman is ever denied a meal and, more importantly, no woman is scared off by arbitrary thresholds or bureaucracy.
In addition to believing that women should be comfortable seeking assistance, NSV really seems to believe in the concept of empowerment. When these women seek help, they are taught to believe in themselves, and to call on their own strength. Homelessness is treated as a symptom of some other problem that needs solving, and those problems are addressed comprehensively. Clients are treated with respect, and they’re given access to all manner of resources and programs that one might expect. They are also given access to services I didn’t expect to see there, like onsite dental care, eye exams, massage. The premise here is the same: These are services that people are entitled to, that shouldn’t be difficult to obtain, and that facilitate health and confidence and a means to a better life. All of these services are provided by volunteers. (NSV is not only innovative, but resourceful.)
NSV serves over 600 women. They are never closed. They provide “food, clothing, showers, transitional and permanent housing, mental and physical health care, and support to re-enter the workforce,” including skill development, vocational rehabilitation and job-search assistance. They want their clients to be self-sufficient, and they do a ton to help them get there. Consequently, the volunteer opportunities are quite numerous. You can work in the Women’s Center, the Night Shelter, the Wellness Center, the Group Homes, or the administrative offices. You can serve meals, stay overnight, plan a social or recreational activity, volunteer in the craft room, provide health care, bring in food, lead a class, pick up donations, or walk in a walkathon. NSV is open to anything, including your own ideas for volunteering.
I thought that it might just be David and his enthusiasm that made the NSV seem so special, but I could see when I went to serve my first breakfast that the organization is truly extraordinary. The clients are warm and gracious, and the staff is friendly and respectful. It’s natural to expect volunteer work to be rewarding. By nature, we seek gratifying experiences, and the gratification we want from volunteering our time is to provide a needed service, and do it well, and feel like we are “giving back” some good fortune or opportunity that, ideally, we realize we haven’t earned. We volunteer with some vague understanding that we should honor and nurture that something in others—humanity, divinity, frailty—that is present in all of us. What came as a surprise (including being surprised by it), was how humbling the experience was.
God is not a part of my day-to-day life. I don’t praise god, or thank god very often, and I don’t think god cares particularly, or notices, what I do or don’t do, and I don’t think god willing something makes it come to pass. But when one of the women came up to thank me for serving breakfast, and said that I was doing god’s work, it felt kind of true, and it felt like a message. It felt like I was being told to remember that I am just a very small, though not altogether insignificant, part of helping these women change their own lives. And I can’t really explain what that felt like—a gift, a warning, a scolding, a lesson, a blessing. It was an induced epiphany, that I should not expect serving breakfast to transform me, or help me reach my own potential, and yet in that same moment, of course, I was transformed. It was a perfect yogic lesson, no down-dog required. (I should mention that this woman also told me about Lazarus and the rich man, and that cereal boxes are works of art, all of which I’m trying to take to heart.)
NSV doesn’t require volunteers to commit to a certain number of hours or a regular schedule, or even a particular job. I don’t know how they do it, but at their own administrative expense, they make the program work for you. They post the schedule online, and send out an eNewsletter regularly, and send out a call for volunteers when needs aren’t being met. They make it irresistibly easy to come in when you can make it, even if that’s not very often. And although the drive to N Street and parking down there may be a little inconvenient, I doubt you’ll find a program as well-developed, well-intentioned and well-run.
N Street Village, 1333 N Street NW, Washington DC, 202.939.2076
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