When Stories Call People To Act

We commonly say that we tell stories that call people to act. Whether that be donate, volunteer, purchase, contact lawmakers, sign-up to participate or make life changes, people do things when they hear stories.

This is a story about how that happened to me (Lauren). I was working on a piece with our friends at MIFA for their annual Our City, Our Story event. This year’s video was to focus on generational volunteers and generational impact; how passing down service to other generations can have lasting impact.

I interviewed Margaret McClean, who has been volunteering with her kids since they were little. Her son, now in middle school, spoke about the impact volunteering has had on his life. And Margaret’s dad, Bill Craddock, also volunteers. That’s THREE generations of volunteers, all giving back by helping deliver meals to people in our community. We followed them on a route and captured the impact in real time. We’ve done this many times over the years.

But the transformation for me, happened when I was editing the piece. I felt this deep sense of responsibility to help contribute to their work. But more importantly, it occurred to me that post-covid, we hadn’t been volunteering as a family as much as we did before 2020. There’s not guilt in that, just simply that I was out of practice. Personally and professionally, service is major core value of mine. It’s literally the first value at Forever Ready Productions and it’s driven by my desire to serve others and my community through my work.

November 2023 - Our first time volunteering with Meals on Wheels.

So, as you can imagine, this project was moving something in me. Just after Labor Day and shortly before the Our City, Our Story event, I contacted MIFA about becoming a regular volunteer. Then I invited my dad to join me. He’s retired and lives here in Memphis and I thought it’d be a great way for us to spend time together while also helping our community.

It took several weeks (at no fault of MIFA’s volunteer coordinator who stayed on top of it and kept reaching out). The week before Thanksgiving we found ourselves doing our volunteer orientation and completing our first route. Icing on the cake, my son Max joined us.

It took less than 2 hours to complete our first route. I’m certain we’ll become more efficient once we doing a couple more of them.

All of this started with editing a video for an event. And I hope that video had a similar impact to people in the room that day.

I believe there are so many ways we can help make change in our community. And volunteering is one of those ways. Post-covid volunteerism is down across the country and specifically across the city. We all got used to life without it. For whatever reason (health, time or connection) we’re not getting back to that part of our life as quickly.

So, this season, I encourage you to take a look at your local volunteer calendar. Find a cause you care about and consider signing up to volunteer on a regular basis. This could be once a month or quarter or you could do something once a week. I plan to volunteer with my dad twice a month and invite members of the Forever Ready team anytime he can’t make it!

Whatever you do, know that your time makes a difference and local nonprofits life MIFA will appreciate it more than you know!