Another One Done With

There, it's finished, completed, done with. If a more brutal month weather-wise could be chosen to canvass for charitable donations in a neighbourhood door-to-door canvass, I'd like to hear about it. I suppose all the other charities who rely on volunteers to do the hefty work of canvassing neighbours to elicit charitable donations have taken all the other months, and poor old Ontario March of Dimes found only the month of January left over.

This is the third year I've gone out to do a canvass for that charity. I've had more than ample experience canvassing; an awkward and unhappy mode of volunteerism that goes back some 35 years of my life. And I've canvassed for a wide spectrum of charitable groups, at various times of the year.

The January canvass takes the prize for ensuring the volunteer faces physical obstacles to reaching his/her goal, while having the potential for wreaking real personal damage in the process.

Away back when the Canadian Diabetes Association had their canvass month in March - almost as weather-nasty a month as January - I experienced my fill of sliding on ice and slipping on mushy snow. I was a lot younger then, and having my legs slip out from under me on an icy driveway, hitting the back of my head and seeing stars, didn't do too much damage.

Fact is, even when the weather is clement, and I'd been canvassing in April, I once took an embarrassing header on someone's front stoop.

And lived to see another day. January though, presents its very own special challenges. But one perseveres, as one must - otherwise don't rise to the challenge of volunteering, right? It does me good, in a way, to do this work. It's a kind of social restorative, experiencing the heartfelt goodness in my neighbours, so many of whom won't think twice before responding generously.

I've long learned which houses to avoid, those who feel no compunction in slamming a door. To your departing back, or to your hopeful face. From the families on the street living in small houses and struggling to meet their bills, who manage somehow to render their offering with a sincere smile, to those living in more accommodatingly large homes expressive of their incomes, I come away with a good feeling.

A community should have a soul. The more people who live in a community who are open and generous when called upon to support an organization whose purpose is to aid and assist those among us whose needs are different, and whose handicaps place them at a disadvantage in society, the better off we all are. We become communal and co-operative and responsible.

And then there's the social aspect. I get the opportunity to stand in peoples' foyers and they get the opportunity to gossip, to vent, to share their worries and cares, and occasionally good news. Even people I don't know will want to stand there and discuss matters of common interest. Conversations have a way of carrying on, and on, and on....

In the process I have the opportunity to help a worthwhile organization raise funds permitting them to expand their useful programs. The people from whom I solicit donations are given the opportunity to know they have contributed to a worthwhile enterprise.

And all the neighbourhood cats and dogs get the opportunity to sniff me and get their ears scratched.