Page 131 - Book about Friendship and Future.Stories of Volunteers.
P. 131
Arina Beidik
KFC Oblaka
Town of Engels
This Is My Cup of Tea!
I have always had a desire to help those who need that. But
I could not find THE fund where I would have felt comfortable
and my activities would have brought tangible results.
I have a close friend who stayed in an orphanage fortunately
not for a long time. We discussed that period of her life: she was
sharing the child’s fears of hers and the feeling of loneliness which
she had experienced then. And I was thinking that I could be
helping the guys, lonely teenagers in orphanages. And only when
I started working in KFC and found myself in the team of volun-
teers who had been helping the guys from orphanages, I under-
stood that this was exactly the format of charity that I wanted to
deal with, that ‘it was my cup of tea’.
The first few visits to the kids were very embarrassing for me.
These kids, what are they like? How do they communicate? How
do they behave? How shall I behave, and how shall I talk? I was
asking myself millions of questions. Later on, I got to know them
closer and I have understood what an inexpressible feeling it
is when the kids remember you, wait for your and are glad to
see you, running to greet you! They cannot wait to communi-
cate, telling something and sharing their emotions with a person
whom they trust. We are learning together, each of us mastering
the skills that are unfamiliar particularly to him/her.
I am glad that of all the volunteering formats I have managed
to find the one that is to my liking and the one where I am being
useful.