Washington Area Women's Foundation

Giving Back: Why I Volunteer

Lauren-HowardMartin Luther King’s birthday reminds me how grateful I am for the fullness of my life – wonderful family and friends, good health, and a rewarding professional career.  The holiday also reminds me that others, whether by birth or circumstance, have not been so fortunate and that I have both the time and resources to, in some small way, do something helpful for them.

The day of service sponsored by The Women’s Foundation gave me a chance to do just that.  That the Foundation chose A Wider Circle for this “giving back” opportunity reflects its expertise at selecting organizations that make a substantial contribution to the lives of vulnerable women and girls in our community.

Among so many worthy organizations, A Wider Circle was a great choice.  It provides furniture – free of charge – to families who frequently sleep on the floor because they don’t have beds, pick out their clothes from plastic garbage bags because they don’t have dressers, and sometimes eat in the bathroom because the toilet provides the only seating in their home.  Last year, A Wider Circle furnished more than 4,000 apartments to grateful families in our region.

A Wider Circle also provides professional clothing to adults needing this service – again, free of charge.  Coats, suits, dresses, pants, and shirts are arranged by size and category on circular racks.  Only clothing in excellent condition makes it on to those racks, and A Wider Circle even steams those items needing a light pressing before they’re made available to its clients.

The room that houses the “store” is bright and clean and looks very much like an upscale retail showroom.  That’s because A Wider Circle’s founder and executive director, Dr. Mark Bergel, insists that each of the more 100,000 adults and children who have come to his facility be treated with dignity.  His goal, as A Wider Circle’s website states, was to create an organization that “would develop programs to address the ‘whole person’ – programs that would not only tend to people’s tangible needs (e.g., furniture and home goods), but also to their ‘inner needs’ (e.g., stress management, financial planning, and healthy self-esteem).”

And that’s why I chose A Wider Circle for my own special day of service.  I knew the organization because I recently led a winter coat drive at Temple Sinai, which contributed more than 100 articles of warm clothing to the Circle.  On the MLK holiday, I spent my hours at A Wider Circle examining clothing to make sure it wasn’t stained or torn and placing them on the appropriate racks.  I enjoyed both the camaraderie with other Women’s Foundation volunteers and the knowledge that I was helping families in need in our community.  It was a truly rewarding experience.  Many thanks for the opportunity, WAWF!

Lauren Howard is a Women’s Foundation donor and a co-chair of the Rainmakers Giving Circle.