New York Magazine

Collective beautification with the New York Restoration Project.   (Photo: Courtesy of the New York Restoration Project)

I decided to try a walkathon. Most are in the fall, and all are one-off events (though one-off can mean three days, as is the case for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day). Athletes for Charity (athletesforcharity.com) keeps a list of run-walks on its Website. A friend has a cousin living with lupus, so she and I signed up for the Alliance for Lupus Research’s Walk With Us to Cure Lupus.

Then, the night before the walk, my husband asked how much money I’d raised. Money? Frantic, I sent out a mass e-mail (the Alliance provides language on its Website, if you’re not a master of the solicitation), and my very generous in-laws saved the day with a $250 donation, smashing my fund-raising goal of $50. Saved—except high winds and downed power lines forced organizers to cancel the walk.

I applied to be a mentor for the Young Women’s Leadership Foundation’s Jump-start to College program (ywlfoundation .org, contact Tara Wood), a new initiative that pairs professional women with the 62 high-school seniors from the Young Women’s Leadership School of East Harlem, an all-girls public school that boasts a 100 percent graduation and college-acceptance rate. The yearlong commitment sounds daunting, but there are only three mandatory sessions and no orientation.

I didn’t hear back for a few weeks, but then I got an e-mail inviting me (and 32 other women) to attend the kickoff event: Interviewing and Communication Skills. I was a little nervous about what to expect when I showed up at the school on East 106th. Would everyone be “professional”? (Most were, from the pediatric doctor to the Pfizer marketing director to the hedge-fund recruiter.) Would I be the only white woman? (Not even close. Almost all the girls were African-American and Hispanic, and almost all the women were white.) And, most worrying: How should I act? It’s one thing to be the authority in a room of 10-year-olds, quite another to figure out your role in a gym full of young women on the verge of adulthood. I decided to talk to the girls like they were my peers, and maybe tried a little too hard to be the “cool” mentor.

I was assigned two extremely poised seniors—Marisol, an aspiring chef, and Ziarra, who has already exhibited her photographs at the Studio Museum and is applying to the Rhode Island School of Design. For two hours, we conducted mock college interviews: What’s your favorite book? Any extracurricular activities? Why do you want to attend _____ University? I gave them tips on behavior: Stop fidgeting; um is not a word; project confidence (the school’s guidance counselor went so far as to tell them to brag). The next session, in February, will be on financial literacy—not my strongest suit. Still, as at 826, the idea is to be a sounding board, not the perfect role model.

But what if you’re really time-starved? New York Cares (nycares.org), an umbrella organization that provides volunteer support to some 850 area nonprofits, is an infrequent volunteer’s best friend. Set up an account on its Website, attend one brief orientation (there are nearly twenty a month), then sign up via the Website for numerous projects. A team leader contacts you by e-mail with details.

Weekend gigs fill up fast, though; often, the project I’d hoped to join was full by the time I found out about it (which, when you think about it, is encouraging). I did get a Sunday slot to prepare and serve breakfast at a shelter at St. John the Divine.

I arrived at 9:15 a.m. and the kitchen was already buzzing as mostly middle-aged, female volunteers chopped and washed and gabbed. After throwing me a plastic apron and gloves, my team leader, Leslie, asked me to cut onions. I hesitated. She rolled her eyes and appointed me to utensil duty. For the next hour, I wrapped plastic forks and spoons in napkins as the room filled up. Soon it was time to serve. Again Leslie gave me my assignment: butter. And smile. For the next hour, we served pancakes and bagels and fruit cups and “apple or orange juice?” to a long line of very appreciative New Yorkers, mostly men, mostly twice. They all said, “Thank you,” some remarked on their cholesterol, others answered my “Butter?” with “Parkay!”

There’s a reason feeding the hungry has become a cliché: The need is constant and the work instantly rewarding.

Yes, I’m getting paid to write this story, so, in a way, all my volunteering has been, as my friend calls it, “faux-lenteering.” The true test will be whether I continue without a magazine assignment (I will, at least with mentoring; I want to see Marisol and Ziarra get into their first choice). I don’t think volunteering automatically makes you a better person, but I do know that getting out of my comfort zone felt right, that we can’t help everyone but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help anyone, and that the Europeans brought horses to America.