When Catie-Reagan emailed to ask if I would write an article for the Members Only Newsletter, I read the email twice. My first thought was, “Me? What in the world do I have to say to the literary professionals who read this newsletter?” I don’t write, write. Well, I do write pages and pages of class-prompted memoir and essays. I enjoy these classes and the sharing, but most of my writing is rather secretive, just for me. Then I had a second thought, “Get out of your comfort zone, write something and hit send.” Here goes.
In looking back, I concluded that books and volunteering are pretty much hand in glove for me. I love reading, writing, and libraries. And authors, I have found, are a pretty agreeable bunch.
It began in high school. Manning the circulation desk, re-gluing separated spines onto well-used pages, sorting books and shelving – Oh, how I loved shelving! Each whole number and its decimal took me on a short odyssey as I reached for the next treasure on my book cart. Shelf reading and blocking was like tying up the day with a beautiful bow.
High school, college, marriage, and children segued into minimal volunteering – mostly face painting and baking cookies for school festivals. I was a working mom after all. Fast forward through twenty-five years in the very technical industrial control systems field and I am retired. What to do? I followed my grandson to elementary school!
As the Volunteer Coordinator at his school for three years, my base of operation was the library (of course). Knee deep in coordinating Book Buddies, Odyssey of the Mind, the Homework Club, Library Readers, Tutoring, and Scholastic Book Fairs, I was in heaven. (Field Day – not so much. Why is it always the hottest day of the year?) The book sale at the Harvest Festival was a huge job of coordinating, but kids will do anything for ice cream. One year we collected 10,000 books! We almost broke the suspension on the truck taking the unsold books to VCU for their book sale.
Elementary school doesn’t last forever, thank goodness. Time to move on. The Richmond Public Library had a huge collection of newspaper clippings about important Virginians that were to be catalogued. The request went out via Hands On and I was in the library again! That project ended, and thanks to Patty Parks, I found my niche volunteering at the reference desk at Main. Joining the Friends of the Library afforded me a shelving gig for the biannual book sale. Could I be any happier? The answer, I was to find out, was yes!
Whether putting together chicken salad rolls and vegetable trays for the Teen YAVA Awards, decorating for Gigi and Meg’s Girls of Summer book list party, or helping with fare for the River City Poets’ Tea for Two, the joy was contagious. At every event the library promoted literacy, good will and love of the written word. A happy camper was I!
The Library took to the road with 100 Books, 100 Days, 100 Places, 100Readers to coordinate with PBS’s Great American Read. We managed to get 100 readers filmed, talking about and reading from their favorite of the 100 books. These films still live on YouTube and are worth looking through as you will see some of your favorite Richmonders volunteering to read from their chosen book.
Cookbooks and volunteer cooks led to Cooking as a Second Language at the Richmond Hostel, thanks again to one of Patty’s brainstorms. A little volunteer dishwashing and vegetable chopping opened a door to other cultures, their history, cuisine, and friendship around the table.
During this time, I saw an ad for World Book Night. This event began in England as a way to put books in the hands of anyone who might want one. I sent in an essay to be a “Book Giver” for Agatha Christi’s After the Funeral and won! What? Books and scones in hand, I went to several retirement homes and ended the day at Stir Crazy, offering a book to any coffee lover who wanted one.
The Library of Virginia’s Transcribe, a part of their Making History Program is something I signed up for whenever I could. There are no words for just how wonderful this program is. Historical court papers from around Virginia, Civil War letters home and the Virginia WPA reports were illuminating – and I would venture to guess could plant a few seeds for the prompt-seeking writer.
I had been a member of James River Writers for a couple of years before I volunteered for the conference. I learned a lot at the planning meetings and while volunteering at the conference. The pandemic put a stop for a while to the planning meetings for most of us. I missed the face to face, but as we all know, the conference in Zoom mode was wonderfully successful! I still smile remembering ReShonda giving us a zoomed Scrivener walk-though from her car on the side of the road. Good times!
Still deep in the pandemic and still brainstorming, Patty thought that Richmond could use a Poet Laureate to bring the city together and fill a community void. An incredible group of Richmond literary and cultural organizations (James River Writers Katharine Herndon and Joanna Lee included) came together over a period of months via zoom. Richmond’s Poet Laureate program was born. Be on the lookout for word of the search for the next Richmond Poet Laureate.
Well, there you have it. A writer? Occasionally. A volunteer? Perpetually. Why would I think this bit of writing would be of interest to readers of the JRW Newsletter? I’m not sure that it will, but it does give me a chance to say that there are those of us among you who will never publish, never have a podcast or a blog, but will be your champion and facilitator with every fiber of our ever-loving-literary-volunteering hearts!
The beauty of meeting like-minded people and going on a new journey is seldom as easy a trek as volunteering. I imagine there are still volunteer slots open for the James River Writers Conference… just saying.
About the Author
Twenty-six years in the Industrial Process Control field afforded Georgie Green the opportunity for travel, teaching, and always learning as industrial process control rooms moved toward intelligent automation. Retirement called for something a little less technical. After a short period as a clerk at Hanover Juvenile Court, she began a life of volunteering in earnest. As Volunteer Coordinator at her grandson’s elementary school, the library was her favorite haunt. Later, volunteering at the Richmond Public Library Reference Desk, Georgie was afforded opportunities for reading, writing, memoir classes, and other volunteer projects that put the pink in her cheeks. Georgie still writes when prompted. While volunteering does not a writer make, perhaps a Literary Devotee is enough.