She Helped Us Find Purpose

Original Medium Post: https://justinpasquariello.medium.com/she-helped-us-find-purpose-d343595eb056

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How we can help everyone connect to theirs and find more joy

My adoption worker, Kitty, brought me to four visits each year with my birth mother — for Christmas, our birthdays, end of school and back to school. While Kitty’s role, and the Department of Children and Families office where she worked, changed, she remained committed to these visits from my adoption at age nine through the celebration visit for my eighteenth (and my birth mother’s 56th) birthdays. Kitty became part of our family. Her steadfast support of our relationship helped us thrive.

Several months after my 18th birthday, Kitty brought my birth mother to Arlington High School’s football stands for my graduation. Kitty and my birth mom sat in one of the emptier higher rows, set back from clusters of gathered families including my extended family.[1]

I was a speaker on that warm, breezy day.

I began my speech by asking parents to stand and be recognized for helping us make it that far. My birth mother looked at Kitty, unsure what to do. Kitty gave her the gentle hand signal that she should of course stand.

Kitty helped my birth mother see a piece of her purpose.

A few years before, when I was a sophomore in high school, Kitty had helped me connect with purpose too, when she asked me to speak on a panel for foster parents-in-training. Maybe that was the first spark toward my decision to found a mentoring organization for foster children; Kitty continued to support my purpose several years later, when she became an inaugural board member for what became Silver Lining Mentoring.

We all have something to give

Kitty saw my birth mother not primarily as someone experiencing mental illness, but rather as a smart, funny, caring person who wanted to support me however she could. Kitty didn’t see me as a former foster child — but rather as someone who could give back to support foster children and others.

There is so much work to be done to better our world, and each of us can play a part in that work. My birth mother later joined a Recovery Learning Community: one of a group of “peer-run networks of self help/peer support, information and referral, advocacy and training activities.” At the RLC, she and others who had struggled or were struggling with mental health could take on an additional identity — as people who supported the mental health and wellbeing of their peers.

Similarly, people in recovery from addiction can become Recovery Coaches and help others in their recovery journeys.

At East Boston Social Centers, our motto recognizes the truth that: “when all give, all gain”. When we give all people an opportunity to give back: when we see that everyone has something to offer, that helps everyone thrive.

So how do we build bridges for everyone to their purpose?

Let’s start with what organizations can do.

Powering volunteering and donating —

Unfortunately, rates of volunteering [2] and individual giving [3] have been declining in recent years. The nonprofit sector needs to recognize that the provision of high-quality volunteer opportunities in and of itself can transform the lives of volunteers and advance our missions. We can increase volunteer opportunities not only to bring more hands to advance our core organizational missions, but also to give more people strengthened connection to purpose.[4]

Creating more volunteer opportunities for people who struggle to reliably show up or who have other barriers can be more challenging, but we can increase flexible, yet meaningful volunteer opportunities — like neighborhood cleanups, neighborhood gardening, or visiting pets in shelter.

Organizations also can give all of our community members an opportunity to contribute financially in some way — and we must recognize the deep impact of those contributions. Fundraising not only advances our missions by providing funding, but also can advance the mission of giving more people connection to purpose and a sense of agency.

We can train people to prepare them for impact in community associations. We can register people to vote. We can collaborate to build job training pipelines to connect people with meaningful work that pays a living wage.

How do we pursue this in an inclusive way that reverses trends of declining civic engagement and builds joy and wellbeing across community? In our next post, we’ll explore how to increase inclusion in nonprofits, and how government and philanthropy can help.

Until then, thank you for helping me pursue my purpose by reading this post. Hopefully it helped you a little bit in your purpose too.

This is the 40th post about boosting joy the only way we can: in community. Please share, subscribe, and join our movement by emailing me or supporting East Boston Social Centers. Stay joyful, East Boston.

This photo is not from my real graduation. My friend Matt and I had a great time visiting my cousin Cat when we were in college. Cat brought us to a legendary local ice cream place, Fenton’s Creamery — and we each picked a hat for the trip (there is a separate photo with Matt in his construction hat).

[1] My extended family has been very supportive of my birth mother too. At my college graduation, they made sure she joined the party — and they supported her in a variety of other ways over the years.

[2] See this Chronicle of Philanthropy article.

[3] See this Vox article among others. This article highlights a decline of trust as a potential factor in decreased giving. I would argue that decline in trust is harmful, and the nonprofit sector can help reverse it. Not trusting could lead to not giving, but I also would hypothesize that for many, the act of giving could lead to increased trust.

[4] Many deserve a shout out here, including organizations that offer AmeriCorps service opportunities. Union Capital and Social Capital, Inc. both give people opportunities to connect with each other and serve their communities, to build social capital.