Dress
for Success Lexington was my number one choice out of the five options of
service groups, and I wanted to volunteer there very badly. I was inspired by
the content of their website and the heart-felt stories of women in poverty who
were able to turn their lives around because of this organization. I was eager
to get started volunteering at Dress for Success in hopes that I would be able
to make an obvious difference in someone’s life.
My
involvement began when two other members of my group, Nikki and Paige, and I
went to our volunteer orientation on a Tuesday after class. We watched a promo
video about all of the meaningful work Dress for Success does for their clients,
as well as discussed our plan for future volunteer dates. I was ecstatic to begin,
and I knew working face-to-face with underprivileged women would be very
humbling.
However,
my expectations of this volunteer work fell short. After having to wait
multiple days for responses to emails and constantly being in a state of
confusion, we found a time that would work with our various schedules. When we
showed up for our first day of actual volunteering, the volunteer coordinator seemed
to have forgotten that we were coming. Nonetheless, she explained that they are
always in need of extra hands since they are regularly busy. I expected that
meant we would have more freedom and responsibility when working with the
clients; once again I was wrong. The “important” tasks at hand were cutting out
our name tags, putting pictures from a folder into a PowerPoint presentation, sorting
one rack of clothing in size order, and hemming one pair of pants. These tasks
seemed to be busy work that were simply pushed aside in the Coordinators’ to do
list since they were tedious and insignificant. I hope that this was a one-time
incident, and real work will be done in our next visit to Dress for Success.
