Excelling at Excel

When I first signed up to volunteer at Dress for Success I was under the impression that I would be working with underprivileged women to change the way their life was going. I thought I was going to be changing these women’s lives. I was very wrong. Over the 10 hours that I spent at Dress for Success I never once spent any time with the women the organization was helping. Instead I was sorting the mess of a stock room they had, or updating their filing system. I spent over half of my time updating excel documents and re-filing the profiles of the women that I was not actually helping, and I know that I was not the only volunteer being wasted in this way. I think only one of the volunteers from this class actually helped a real person. While I do admit that my schedule didn’t lend itself well to helping people since I often had to come in after the times when any of the clients were there, there was one opportunity for me to interact with a client that I was denied.

The last the last time I went to volunteer there was a woman going through the suiting process where she gets to try on suits that Dress for Success gives her for interviews. I walked in while they were just getting started but instead of letting me help or even sit in on the process I was delegated to working on excel documents yet again. The explanation that Alton and I were given was that the woman had her child and was intermittently on her phone so it wasn’t a good situation for us to help with. Even when Alton offered to help with the little boy to try and make it easier to get through the suiting he was denied, so instead of being allowed to help with the only client I had even seen, I sat at the computer for two hours updating the files; again. That is definitely not what I was expecting from my volunteer experience.

I think it really came down to the fact that Dress for Success Lexington is only 2 years old and they are still extremely unorganized. They don’t really seem to have their act together enough for volunteers to do anything besides simple clerical work. As a whole it seemed as if they were drowning in the responsibilities of running an organization. They even had trouble simply setting up times for us volunteers to come in and help. There were a lot unanswered emails and a general lack of organization concerning the volunteer process. I am actually pretty upset that the experience didn't exactly turn out how I was expecting it to. I was originally excited to experience the work this organization was doing for these women and I left the organization without a hint of what really goes on throughout the whole process. I would not say yes to Dress for Success.