September 2007

Kyle and I get to be volunteers again!

One of the ironies in managing a growing organization is that you quickly get away from the things that got you into the work in the first place. CSM is doing great--nine cities going full-blast, over 10,000 people contributing over 43,000 days of service this year, great staff, God is moving, etc. etc.--but the reality of this growth means that, except for the occasional hosting assignment in the spring, our time is consumed with personnel management, housing leases, insurance policies, budgets, equipment purchases...you get the idea.

So it was very fun when our beloved home church, Community Covenant in El Cajon, asked me (Noel) to get us plugged into Mama's Kitchen. Mama's Kitchen delivers meals all over San Diego County to shut-ins with chronic illnesses, many with HIV/AIDS. They are a secular nonprofit, but have learned to work with and appreciate volunteers from Christian churches and organizations. In CSM, we work with similar organizations all over the country, including Food & Friends in DC, Manna in Philly, Project Open Hand in SF, and Project Angel Food in LA. It's familiar territory for us, but it's a new type of outreach opportunity for our church.

It felt like old home week when I went to the MK volunteer orientation in downtown San Diego. MK and its sister organizations have their mission and methods down--all the way down to facility layout, systems, schedules, rules and guidelines, and the lot. Bill Patten, MK's volunteer coordinator, picked up my comfort level early on. "Tell you what," he said. "Once you've done the route, just have your other volunteers fill out the forms and fax them in. They don't need to come to the orientation, you can handle that." Works for me!

I did the first Friday-afternoon route on my own to get a feel for what it would be like. Of course, the first stop was the trickiest ("...turn down the alley after the mailboxes, go to the T, it's the last duplex in the back-right corner...")! Just like our CSM groups, I learned more about the community and its residents along my route in a couple of hours than I'd otherwise have learned in years.

There are a lot of impoverished, isolated people out there--many who are gravely ill. It means a lot to them to see a friendly face, hear a kind word, receive some badly-needed food and the knowledge that people do care. And it has been a great reminder of why Kyle and I got into this work in the first place. This is why volunteering is so cool! This is why CSM is such a great ministry!

It's been a lot of fun since then, and we have a great team of people from our church who have joined our delivery crew. One of the coolest parts of this is how God met our need for an administrative coordinator for our team. Mark, a young man from our church who was paralyzed some years ago in an auto accident, contacted me after I'd done my recruitment pitch. "I obviously can't make the deliveries," he wrote, "but I could coordinate the team schedule, make the phone calls, and handle all of the administration." And has he! He's doing a fabulous job and has filled a huge need for our MK ministry.

This may not seem to have been so much about CSM, but I think it really has. What our little church is doing with these meal deliveries is the essence of what thousands of young people and adults are doing, week in and week out, all over North America, through CSM. This is what you help to make possible through your friendship, prayers, and financial support. THANK YOU so much! And I hope that you might be able to discover a Mama's Kitchen, or other kind of service opportunity, in your home community. Give the volunteer thing a try...believe me, you'll love it!

Blessings,

Noel Becchetti, President

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