Reflections: Shared values, lasting friendships

Finding friends for life through service

In an effort to both sustainably and consistently write and examine my own experiences as a volunteer and philanthropist, I present the Reflections series.

Reflections are just that: ponderings and journal-style posts that explore the influences and experiences in my life that have shaped my own view of service. Included will be questions posed to myself, which I encourage you to reflect on as well.

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When I sat down to write, I thought at first I would be writing about a literal lifelong friend that I have because of a volunteering organization we both belonged to as kids. But, as it turns out, I actually don’t have any lifelong friends from my earliest days as a fledgling volunteer.

What I do have is something (probably) even more rare and special: adult friendships (yes, friends I found after graduating from college), made as a young professional in a new city without any preexisting personal connections. Even wilder: I owe all these friendships (including with the man who eventually became my husband) to a single organization.

I moved to Houston in 2011 for a job at the company that still cuts my paychecks today. I didn’t know a soul, had never really been to Texas before (except for a random vacation in middle school), and was starting my first big-girl job. Pretty quickly, it became clear that I needed something outside of sleeping and working.

In high school and college, I volunteered with the American Cancer Society (ACS) and sat on planning committees for their Relay For Life (RFL) fundraising events. So, the obvious move was to contact the local ACS chapter, learn about their RFL events, and find the event closest to my side of Houston to join. Within 24 hours, I had both an email and a phone call from an ACS staff member, asking me to join the Relay For Life of Katy planning committee as their logistics chairperson.

The Relay For Life of Katy was not exactly made up of my peers. Katy was a suburb, and the vibe was suburban. The committee was all women in their forties-sixties. Nevertheless, I enjoyed contributing to the event and joined back the following year.

Over the summer break, our first ACS staff partner had moved on and was replaced by Erin. A few years later, Erin also moved on to her next career chapter, and Cherrelle entered the scene. By the time Cherrelle was promoted at ACS, the org was consolidating Relays For Life in our metro area, and I decided to move on to other causes. But I kept Erin and Cherrelle.

Our friendships blossomed in our RFL days. Erin likes to say we became friends while sitting in my car after canvassing the neighborhood adjacent to our event site. Cherrelle won major points when she recruited me to join the Relay For Life of Houston, which had a more of a young professionals vibe, and I met the man who would become my husband.

That Relay For Life of Houston group was truly special. When our event was sidelined by RFL consolidation, we went our separate ways as a committee. But whenever one of us needed (reliable) volunteers, bodies to fill seats, or support for a social impact endeavor, we were there for each other. During Hurricane Harvey, one of our crew’s parents’ homes suffered serious damage. Just one text message, and a group of us were there the next day to muck it out. I have a picture of all of us wearing RFL shirts in front of the house, a happy sartorial coincidence. A few years later we joined forces again to build up a monthly “feed the city” event in central Houston, building sandwiches for the local Loaves and Fishes kitchen downtown.

Today, I am so lucky to have Erin just up the way from me here in Austin. Cherrelle still lives in Houston, but we catch up fairly regularly. Now that I’m sitting here thinking about them both, they were the first two non-family members to hold my daughter after she was born last year.

Last week, one of the RFL of Houston crew messaged our group chat, sharing her daughter’s school fundraiser. She wasn’t soliciting donations from us; she wanted to share her daughter’s efforts. The budding philanthropist had created her own messaging content; mom was very proud!

We came together through a shared value of service: Erin and Cherrelle through their careers, and the rest of us alongside ours. We found people we could volunteer alongside, rally behind, and rely on. And by perhaps some happy accident, we all genuinely liked each other enough to share contact information beyond the standard committee email list.

I am now three years into life here in Austin, in a phase with less free time but perhaps an stronger call to do something than I had in my twenties. I hope to find my footing in this community, learn about it and align myself with similar folks of shared values. And, more than anything, I want to be an example of service for my daughter, as my mother was for me.