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~ Wayne's National Update ~

Hello! President Bush has declared this week National Volunteer Week, and I can't let the week go by without saluting our Tip Volunteers. While I acknowledge that all volunteers are special, and recognizing that I am biased, I truly believe that Tip Volunteers are THE BEST! Tip Volunteers combine two personal qualities that most of us just don't have in equal measure...heart and guts. Volunteers have the heart to provide compassion and the guts to dive into unknown chaotic situations. Many Tip Chapters have an Annual Dinner called the Heroes With Heart Dinner. What a great description of Tip Volunteers... Heroes With Heart. We usually think of heroes as having physical strength and the willingness to go into physically dangerous situations. A Tip Volunteer is a different kind of hero who is willing to go into emotionally fiery situations recognizing that he may experience some of the victim's pain.

I saw a sign a few weeks ago, which read "Compassion In Action." Another great description of Tip Volunteers. For Tip Volunteers, compassion is not an ideal or an inner virtue, but compassion is a gift delivered to another human being in their time of need. Just as an aside, when I saw the Compassion In Action sign I thought to myself...." that would make a perfect slogan for our organization." But I suspect I would get quite a fight if I tried to replace our current slogan: " Citizens Helping Citizens In Crisis."

Probably the best description of all of Tip Volunteers is the one used by our clients in their Thank you letters. They refer to Tip Volunteers as Angels. Over and over again clients use "Angel" or "My Angel" to describe the Tip Volunteer who assisted them. This is fascinating. I would have thought clients would refer to Tip Volunteers as "volunteer", "counselor", "representative", "employee", but not as Angel. Where does Angel come from?(!!!!) Certainly no one on the scene uses that term and it's nowhere to be found in our literature. "Angel" comes directly from clients themselves based on their experiences of Tip Volunteers. Obviously, the fact that clients spontaneously refer to Volunteers as Angels speaks volumes about their high regard for volunteers.

As we trudge through life on a daily basis it's hard to think of ourselves as other than ordinary human beings. But I would encourage all Tip Volunteers ... at least when you are on call for Tip... to think of yourselves as our clients do....as Angels. Please, Tip Angels, hear what our clients are telling you...you can and do work miracles in their lives. Your clients won't remember your name or the color of your eyes, but they will always remember that an Angel appeared and helped during the worst few hours of their lives. And then quietly disappeared.

Have a wonderful and SAFE week. Sincerely, Wayne Fortin, Founder