Page 44 - Book about Friendship and Future.Stories of Volunteers.

Irina Serebrennikova

Area Coach (intern)
Yum! Restaurants Russia LLC, Moscow

Every day we meet lots of people: guests and peers in the
restaurants, passers-by in the street, relatives, the beloved ones,
kids and friends at home. While communicating with them, one
can see that sometimes even the simplest things, and words, but
pronounced with kindness and love, make people happy. So, one
does not need a lot to become the one who helps others.
Suffice to start. Myself and the team of our Area Directors, we
were very inspired by our peers’ example: we decided that we
would definitely take part in the project “Fun Corridor”.
When we came to the branch of the Research Institute for
Child Psychoneurology, we met a few persons who have been
participating in the project on a constant basis (a few times
a month), painting the walls in hospitals. From the very start I felt
respect to those people. And one hour later we were already
working in a team, as if we had known each other for ages. Ev-
ery now and then one could hear: “Who needs the colour 128?
I have got some left!”, “Let me finish this corner and you could
help me with those patterns on the top!” We were painting the
wall with bright colors. As a result, there appeared Vasilisa the
Wise and Ivan Tsarevitch, the squirrel with some golden nuts and
the palace of tsar Saltan – the fairy tales seemed to come alive
on the walls! When I came back home that evening and showed
the photo of the picture we created to my child, he said, “It is
a pity I am too little and cannot take part in painting. You got it
so beautiful that the kids will no longer feel too sad or scared in
the hospital.”
Children are our future, and our task is to fill their lives with
bright colors and beautiful dreams. The feeling of having some-
one made a little happier is inexpressible, one gets overwhelmed
with happiness. Besides, volunteering teaches us to look at ev-
erything from a different perspective and appreciate the things
we have, it helps us to enjoy simple pleasures, gives us the op-
portunity to manifest empathy, to open up one’s talents in a new
capacity.