Planting The Seeds of Community Service

Tonight my daughters were sitting on the floor of our study sorting and counting the donations that my kindergartener’s Daisy Girl Scout troop collected for their Project Undercover community service project. Even though the busy tableau of their counting soon devolved into the younger one making silly noises while the teenager complained that she was losing count because her little sister was bothering her, the scene still warmed my heart. Over the past week, the introduction to community service that Project Undercover has been to my younger daughter has brought tears of joy to my eyes more than once.

The Girl Scouts in our part of the state have been engaging in Project Undercover for as long as I can remember – my older daughter has participated since kindergarten. It is a simple collection drive of underwear, diapers and similar items for children under the care of Child Protective Services. My youngest daughter is no stranger to the idea that we should help others and act on our principles. We make sure she is aware of the need to donate food to food drives, school supplies to school supply drives, etc. And we have often protested, volunteered and caucused with her in tow. There’s a difference, though, when you feel in charge of a community service project than when you just participate in it – a whole different level of ownership. For my little Daisy, that higher level of ownership really made her think.

My daughter and her little troop had decorated a poster to go on a collection box at school. I photocopied fliers to send home to all the parents at their school and we took the box to her classroom on the next school morning and set it out. That night, I asked my daughter if she wanted to go get donations at the store to put in the box from our family, and she was very excited about it. We picked out diapers and underwear and she told me about how her class had talked about bringing donations. She was very proud when she put her donations in the box the next morning.

My little girl was also very mad that some kids laughed when diapers were mentioned as something to donate. She was hotly passionate at the wrongness of their silliness in the face of something so important as this project. Her voice, when she was telling me about it, lashed out, whip-like and intense. She was despondent that the laughing children might not bring anything and that the foster children would not get what they needed. She watched the box daily and expressed concern when it didn’t fill immediately. She need not have worried.

More than once over the week, my daughter asked me about the “ostro people” at odd times in our mornings and evenings. I didn’t know what she meant at first, but we finally figured out that she meant the “foster children” who would be getting the donations, words with which she had not been familiar. She asked if any of her friends were "ostro children". She mentioned things they had said. I explained how adoption was different. She put on a silly face and said she was and "ostro person" and had a different mama before me - I assured her that this was not the case. The concept of kids being cared for by a new family for awhile when their parents couldn’t care for them clearly was on her mind, in that way that a disturbing concept does stick in children’s brains to be worried out one way or another.

She had some questions.

I know this stickiness in the brain and subsequent worry is why some people think that small children should be protected from awareness of suffering and danger in the world, and I definitely understand that point of view. There is a certain heartbreak in seeing a child lucky enough to know no horrors ponder the existence of true pain and want in the world - the impulse to protect their innocence is so strong.

I believe in Maria Montessori’s concept of the absorbent mind. Young children absorb everything they are exposed to with no filters. Children become what they are exposed to in their early years, somewhere deep inside – they take it in as a part of who they are. This belief makes the urge to protect children very strong in me. I believe young child should be protected from exposure to violence in life and media, even pretend violence, because I do not think we should allow violence to be part of who we are anymore. Even so, the same principle works in reverse.

As careful as we must be about the things that young children are exposed to, so too must we make sure to expose them to a true spirit of service to their community and a desire to right wrongs and help others if we want that to be part of who they are deep inside. I feel sadness over the sticky hurt that the knowledge that some kids have parents who can’t take care of them is to my daughter, but I feel a much deeper joy as I see compassion blossom in her heart. I think it’s necessary.

My daughter’s classmates collected more than 300 items for Project Undercover and she just couldn’t have been more proud. Community service is in her spirit now and I know she will want to be part of organizing many more efforts to help others in the future. I couldn’t be more proud of her.

For more from Lone Star Ma, go to www.lonestarmablog.blogspot.com.