Buellton Senior Center
Volunteering by R.E. Darby
Retirement doesn't mean that we can no longer be involved or useful. In fact, it can open up a whole new
world of opportunities to give our lives added value and meaning. It would be and is, so easy to just
not think about anything and hang around the nice comfortable house, watch soap operas or the stock
market reports or whatever. So many people, especially here in the United States, live out their
entire lives and never realize the insidious danger that too much comfort for too long can represent.
Its like an invisible influence that slowly rocks us into a kind of coma that prevents us from seeing
what is going on around us and more importantly what we are doing, or not doing, with the remainder
of our lives. The days turn into weeks, the weeks turn into months, then years and its kind of like
trees growing, so slow we don't notice until it's done.
Yes, it's that old psychological manipulation technique known as conditioning at work again. Just how many of us have allowed ourselves to be a victim of this process and for how long and in how many ways, is too scary and more importantly too unproductive to think about. But it is helpful to know something about it. Especially the fact that the longer we are exposed to a certain repitive influence, the more difficult it is to break its power over us. Difficult but not impossible.
Self Discipline
The basic formula here is to impose our will over the influences of conditioning. Our will is a
component of our personal power, a good place to learn about this is here.
Few of us ever learn that we have such power but we do, and we can use it to make changes in our
lives. A good place to start is to get out and volunteer in your community. At first, you may have
to force yourself to just get out of the house, but you can use your will power to get passed the uncomfortable
feelings that you may experience until you get comfortable with new activities, places and people.
In time you will get comfortable, it is only a little tough in the begining. But with repitition,
we can use the power of conditioning for us, instead of against us for a change, and for anything we wish to change.
Why would we want to do all this? Well, the answer to that can be found in our hearts. That may
sound corny in this day and age when so many of us have drifted away from our natural spiritual
awareness, for any number of reasons, but I believe that the biggest reason is that careing can be
tough duty sometimes because it leaves us vulnerable to pain. Too often we forget that careing
comes with risk and that is why it takes courage.
To Rise Above
Though we may be estranged from our spiritual selves at times, we are nevertheless able to rise above our
everyday world and fly at a much higher altitude. I was very much surprised at what I discovered
when talking to people who volunteer. One had gone to a grief counciling meeting at a Senior Center
after her husband died and someone mentioned that she might like to donate some time at the local
thrift store as a strategy for getting her mind off of things. Two weeks later she was a completely
different person with a whole new outlook on life.
But the loss of a loved one is by no means the only motivation behind volunteering. Husband and wife
teams do it together. Others do it because of a promise made to their parents before they passed
away. Still others do it from a sense of social responsibility, and others believe that every
community needs all the support that its citizens can provide. And this may surprise you but some
volunteer because it is a family tradition passed down from generation to generation by families who
have not yet lost their values. But what surprised me most was that
very few of them, though they acknowledged it, felt that personal satisfaction was a motive but rather
an unintended consequence of the act of freely giving something very personal and extremely valuable, themselves.
A Case In Point
Here in Buellton the Santa Ynez Valley Senior Citizens Foundation has three places where people can
volunteer, two thrift stores and the Senior Center. Each with different needs and having a different
character and feel. But here again I was unprepared for the real story behind these organizations.
To begin with, the original Senior Thrift Store, which is a buellton landmark located on the corner
of Hwy 246 and Central Ave across from Rabobank, is nothing less than sensational. Many people in
the community still believe that the great ladies that work at the thrift store are paid staff, not
so said Rosemary Hrehor a nine year veteran of the store. But that wasn't the only surprise she had
for me that the community as a whole might like to also know about.
The Original Recycling Centers
The Thrift Stores in Buellton are nonprofit members of our community and they never raise their prices so that
they can serve the entire community which includes those who have limited incomes, thrift stores
are after all, the affordable option to main stream retail outlets. They are a community's
recycling center for goods of all kinds.
Members of the community who are more fortunate than others need a place to get rid of stuff they
no longer have use for and they donate items to the thrift stores. The thrift store sells those
items for a very affordable price. The proceeds from the thrift stores are used to fund the many
services that the Senior Center provides like Lunch & Meals on Wheels program, the medical transportation
program, the medical library from which all members of the community can obtain cains, wheel chairs,
walkers, bed pans, toilet chairs etc. Even a computer lab where people can come and do their online
business and have a computer professional on hand to help with any problems and much more.