Finding purpose in a non-profit
A friend shared her story of how her career progressed from television marketing, to soft-drink marketing, and finally to having spent the last decade running a community center supporting teenagers and the elderly, and what it means to her:
So, literally, it's just a bunch of these things came together at a stage when I really needed to sort of have a job, have something that demonstrated to my children that I was of value. That I wasn't just left behind in this divorce. And I could get out there and become something in the world, and also serve a greater good. And I think it's been incredibly valuable for them as well. To have a mom who works in the non-profit world.
They see the lives that we change here every day. They know a lot of the older adult members. They are with me every year when we deliver Thanksgiving dinners to older adults, who have no food. or teenagers, who don't have enough to make a dinner.
So the girls participate a lot in these fundraisers and that’s really good for them as well. And I would say over the last 10 years of working here, you know, one of the things they didn't tell me but that we've all come to know, of course you can't help it when you work here, is that you fall in love with the members, and then they pass away. Because the aging process, despite our best efforts, never stops.
So, we work really hard to make their lives as good as possible, as happy, as healthy, as productive, as inclusive and included as possible, through our work here at the center and it's been life-changing for me, it's incredibly gratifying - and it's this journey.
Television production, especially sports production, it provides entertainment. And it's a really valuable thing for people. It brings families together, It's incredibly important. It's also fleeting. And then to go to basically the production of soda water which you know, sugary soda water manufacturing and sales at Coca-Cola. That was a good perspective as to what's important out there. And then to land in this job that really helps - all we do every day is good stuff for people.
We're just a bunch of do-gooders and make people's lives way way better. A really dear friend of mine from the center here passed away this morning at age 72. She got mesothelioma and died. She was a super amazing person who never stopped moving, who volunteered constantly, who was here at the center all the time.
Her husband was on my board for six years at least, was a mentor to me. And, you know, in every day, I get a bigger bigger dose of perspective on how fleeting life is and how approaching the aging process through health and wellness and community participation is incredibly valuable. People who live in silos die younger, you know?
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