My parents were children during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Like most people who grew up in those grueling times, they learned to save everything. I grew up washing bread bags (when we had the rare store-bought bread), folding tin foil, saving soap bar shreds to use for laundry… all of those things.
I still do a lot of them. (Not the tin foil. Always was my least favorite.) It’s a great skill to have when working at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch. We take financial stewardship very seriously.
I have a big box on my side desk of random envelopes. Sometimes people kindly donate boxes of cards for the children to do art projects, and we use donated Christmas cards for writing thank-you notes at that time of year. But, the envelopes often end up orphaned. I can’t just trash them, so I use them for letters and cards and notes and really any way I can.
“I am here to volunteer!” came the very loud voice from my office door! It came out of a very small person with long blond hair and a big smile! This week, the children are practicing community service along with their treatment. Several “adopted a highway,” and, with supervision, cleaned the roadside. This little one, because of her impulse control challenges, was doing projects on campus. Her Residential Treatment Specialist was beside her.
I didn’t know she was coming. I looked around my office for a project and eyed the box of envelopes. “I need to get these envelopes sorted,” I said. “I need the Christmas ones in one pile and the generic ones in another.”
“OK,” she said, and started singing a song of her own making – both lyrics and melody – as she sat at the side desk and started making piles. She laughed at me trying to hum along as I tried to work diligently at my own desk. She made comments about the designs of the envelopes, occasionally stopped to ask when one was questionable (“Are blue and yellow snowflakes really Christmas?”), and got really excited about a polar bear on an envelope. “Can I have this one for my sister? She loooooves polar bears. She’s seven.” And then back to singing.
Fifteen minutes later, she was done. She was so fast. She did a quick tour of my office, identifying weird office things like the cordless phone charger, the cell phone stand, a tiny, precious, plastic Jesus, and a hand cross that says “Comfort” on it. And then announced, “Next!”
I heard her at the office across the hall. “I am here to volunteer.”
I truly love these children.
Please keep our staff and kids in your prayers.
In His love,
Joy Ryan, President/CEO
Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch
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