The Life of A Ferndale Schools Volunteer

I will never forget the first time I volunteered for a Ferndale schools event.  My daughter had started in kindergarten at Roosevelt Elementary, and towards of the end of the school year I heard about something called the "June Fair."   They had a lot of games on the Midway, and they needed parents to help out for a shift.  I proudly told my wife,"Look, honey!  I will volunteer!  Look at me--volunteering!"  I signed up, and told everyone at work, "Sorry, I have to leave early today--I'm volunteering!" I got there for my shift, was led to a set of bowling pins by a very frazzled-looking PTA person, and spent the next 90 minutes taking purple tickets from excited kids and bending over 10,000 times to re-set the pins in the hot summer sun.  When my shift was up, I looked up, waiting for a congratulatory hand-shake from the June Fair Coordinator.  Who knows--maybe I would get a plaque with my name on it!  Unfortunately, the June Fair Coordinator was still rushing around, running back and forth coordinating another 50 volunteers. There was no handshake, no plaque, and the only acknowledgement I remember is someone saying "Hey, if you're finished doing that, can you come over here and do this?"  Welcome to the life of a school volunteer.    

Like most people, I imagined volunteering at school would be like an old movie on television -- women in aprons baking fresh cookies and Dads in T-shirts building playscapes, parents running over to offer help.  The truth is, those kind of things really only happens in old movies and TV shows.  The world has changed so much since then, and there are so many different activities demanding the time of parents and students alike.  School.  Soccer, baseball and football.  Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.  Karate.  Marching Band.  And the nuclear family with a stay at home Mom and 2.5 kids has given way to more complex world of two working parents, single parents, extended families, kids at latch key.  Families often barely have time for meals together, let alone organized school activities.  And it's more and more difficult to pull kids away from 24 hour cable TV and video games to do something old-fashioned and fun, like running a sack race or throwing brown bean bags in a fake toilet.  And don't get me started about money.... 

As local and state governments have cut back on funding for education, more and more of a school volunteer's job is just begging for money-- money for assemblies, money for scholarships, money so children who are less-well off can attend school events, money for new projects the district can't budget for, money to go to school competitions.  School organizations sell wrapping paper, have Tag Days, restaurant nights, Fun Runs, Charity Gaming, Euchre, fashion shows --whatever they can do to put money in the coffers so everyone across the district can enjoy the extracurricular activities that make a school into a community.   

But I won't lie to you.  Not everyone volunteers.  As a matter of fact, as any school volunteer will tell you, despite any new school year talk of "brand new parents" or election talk of "a new army of volunteers!," it's usually that same core group of volunteers that tend to help out with everything.  And it's not because they are "control freaks," or have to have everything done a certain way.  (Trust me--Most school volunteers would be happy if you did it any way at all!) 

Now, where are all the other parents?  That is a complicated issue.  As discussed in a previous column, Ferndale is a very diverse school district. You have homes that are lucky enough to have stay-at-home parents who can walk with their kids to school every morning and volunteer during the day, and you have other homes with parents who are doing everything they can just to scrape by, with single parents working two jobs and trying to help their kids with their homework late into the night.  You have parents who are involved in other activities -- church, non-school based sports leagues, You have parents who don't feel they get enough credit for all their hard work, so why bother if no one cares?  And, sad to say, you probably have a small share of parents who don't even think about it -- they think things just "happen".   For better or worse, you can't force a person to volunteer or help the way you might wish they would. 

Now, that being said, what is a school Volunteer to do?  I have had parents suggest to me that if we can't get enough "regular" parents to help out, we should just eliminate the activities that volunteer-raised funding pays for.  This would mean no assemblies like the Earth Dome astronomy in the school gymnasiums.  It could mean fewer, or no, scholarships for deserving Seniors.  Teams could stop competing in district-wide competitions.  Schools that could generate enough parental involvement could have whatever they wanted, and the kids from the other schools could just watch.  It serves them right, some people seem to say.   No one said life was fair. 

But there's what's "fair", and there's what's right. And the volunteers in Ferndale schools are doing what they do because they believe it's the right thing to do.  Children are depending on them.  No Ferndale school district student with a desire to learn and grow should be denied a opportunity because of their family circumstances.  If people need help, our Ferndale volunteers are here to help.

Which is why you'll see the PTA parents out in the hot sun of June Fair setting up the "Nose of Slime," or selling snacks at school football games, or making treats to sell at the bake sales, or hammering up a new stage set for the school musical.  You'll see parents, teachers and administrators at all our schools from early morning until late at night, giving that extra effort that will generate no more reward or recognition than a kid's smile, or the pride of a scoring at a school game, or a handshake from a grateful parent.  This kind of selfless sacrifice is part of what makes the Ferndale school district a real community we all want to be part of, and sets an example for our fellow citizens and our children. 

But volunteering is not something you just read about in the Patch.  It's important that YOU get involved, in whatever way you can.   For example, the annual FE-PTA June Fair is happening on Friday, June 1 at Roosevelt Elementary from 5:30- 8:30 PM, and they still need plenty of help --go to http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/2923456318101080122 to sign up.  Or call the school closest to you to see how you can help them.  Not to mention Ferndale Youth Assistance, the Ferndale Fine Arts Boosters, the Ferndale Education Foundation, the Eagles Pledge, and many more.   Contact for all these groups can be found at the Ferndale school district website at http://www.ferndaleschools.org.   

Roll up your sleeves and get involved, and give back to the community that gives so much to you and your kids.  Trust me--you will be glad you did (even without your monogrammed plaque).

Keep feeling that Eagle Pride!