Three Volunteering Vignettes
/Three Volunteering Vignettes
By Gail Small
Who knows what avenue volunteering might take you? Sarah Glaser volunteered in the kelp forest tank at Birch Aquarium at Scripps. She dove down under to clean the 70,000 gallon kelp forest tank. Her nemeses were the moray eels who tied themselves up in knots around the vacuum connector. Sarah wondered if one of them would bite her as who knows what might happen when volunteering. She graduated to wearing a communication mask to speak to audiences during live shows as she retrieved a bucket of food and fed the fish by hand. Something did happen! It was on her last day as a volunteer diver that an audience member named Cullen asked the question. And I quote, “Will you marry me?” This volunteer had a once in a lifetime experience!
Brian in Australia one day had an idea to be a clown to amuse and help others. He created an outfit with colorful funny-looking clothes. And so, the Fatso Fun Show began. He did silly things to bring laughter to others. He could not find bright oversized shoes and thought that not a problem. So he volunteered bringing cheer with his unusual clown shoes homemade from scraps all connected creatively with bright purple paint. One day while volunteering, Brian described to a lady he just met how he made his clown shoes the best that he could. It was months later, just before the holidays, when to his surprise she arrived with what Brian describes as, “the most magnificent pair of multicolored leather clown shoes.” They were blue, red, yellow and green with big black toes and lined with soft blue leather. This woman who seemed to come out of nowhere said, “They are a gift for you. The reward for me is to see and hear your reaction and know
