Filed under: Tim | Tags: CHOICE Humanitarian, Computers, Guatemala, Helping, Road Trip, salt lake city, Travel, utah, Volunteer
Hey GWT followers,
Today we worked at CHOICE Humanitarian. Sometimes it seems like our timing is intentional. Over the weekend a tragedy occurred for this organization; a plane shuttling volunteers to Guatemala crashed and eleven people were killed. Needless to say their small office was full of activity; we were pleased that they let us help in a time where they have so much to do. Zach and James did research on news articles and statistics while I created a flash movie from letters of condolences. See, I did do something with my digital media degree! (bottom of this page)
What CHOICE does is amazing, and we were so happy to lend a hand when they could really use it. This is the first time GWT has worked behind computers, which was something a little bit different for us. It was also one of our longest days at a site, from quarter to ten to seven o’clock, though there were people in the office before we got there and we were not the last to leave. There’s something about doing work that benefits others that makes it easier and more fulfilling. CHOICE also exemplifies something that we’ve noticed makes a huge difference in the success of volunteer orgs – they focus on what the people they serve say they need and set them up for the long term. This sounds like a very basic thing, but it’s very easy to believe you know what someone else need and be totally off the mark. CHOICE judges their success not by the completion of projects, but by the projects the people they trained go on to create.
If anyone from CHOICE is reading this, we would like to offer our condolences for your departed comrades. We read and heard a lot about them today, and they truly were exemplary people.
Tomorrow we depart for Denver! Maybe we’ll see this big salty lake that’s supposed to be here before then.
Much love,
Tim
