Giving time can pay big dividends for all

Frontiersman Editorial Board

The main story in this edition of Frontiersman is about Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Not the ones who chase you around the house with water balloons when Mom and Dad are out to dinner, or the ones who hang you upside-down from your ankles in the neighbor's tree. These Big Brothers and Big Sisters are people who donate their time to help enrich the lives of children who need more positive adult influences in their lives -- for any number of reasons.

Our culture is an odd one in many ways. On some levels, we're a materialistic and self-centered people, and we're often so busy we can't seem to find the time to spend with our own friends and family, let alone time to give to helping others. Yet, in many other ways, we can be a very generous culture, and we place kindness and charity high on our priority lists. It's a dichotomy that's hard to decipher sometimes. Maybe it's just that while most of us understand the importance of compassion and the true purpose of community, only a special few have made the commitment to practice the acts that produce meaningful results from those values.

The Big Brothers Big Sisters organization is expanding its efforts in the Valley, and many children will benefit from that effort. The people who will work with those children will be sharing perhaps their most valuable commodity -- their time. Everyone seems to be working long hours these days, and we all have things we like to do with our precious spare time. Each week it seems we have less time to do more things, and it's easy to be selfish with such a rare resource. People who volunteer a lot of their spare time to compassionate projects often tell us that they feel more enriched by the effort, not less. Many of these people even say they get such a good feeling from their positive interactions with others that they almost feel guilty about it.

That's the funny thing about giving; it always turns out to be more of a two-way street than we first imagine it might. We're glad to see Big Brothers Big Sisters growing in the Valley, and we hope a lot of positive, adult role models will find the time in their busy schedules to participate. It's a great opportunity to enrich the life of a child and to spend your valuable spare time doing something that will leave you feeling enriched as well. What could be better than that?