A door opening

 

 Snowdrops appeared after our nine inches of snow began to melt last weekend.

In early January, I answered a notice in an e-newsletter from an Illinois non-profit  looking for a volunteer to come once a week to do "mindless office work."

The non-profit works with faith communities (of all flavors) 

to give them tools to be good stewards of the earth.

I had been wondering what direction to take next, after so many years of taking care of Gerrit.  I didn't want to go back into the food industry, where I had spent all of my career prior to Gerrit's getting sick.  And while I'm very interested in environmental issues, I have no credentials beyond an amateur's enthusiasm.

So I thought that this might be a good way for me to do something useful, maybe meet some people who could lead me to another stage, and if nothing else, give me a little structure in my week.

I started mid-January, taking the train into Chicago and walking through the Loop to the office.  Each week I worked on a database of grants and projects, updating information and creating reports, and doing whatever else the executive director wanted me to do.  

Four weeks later, the part time bookkeeper left for a full time job, and I was asked if I wanted to take on that responsibility one more day a week, for pay.  No matter that I have no bookkeeping experience; the ED had confidence in my abilities.

It didn't take me long to say yes.  One 5-hour stint with the departing bookkeeper (an excellent and patient teacher) on QuickBooks, and several follow-up training sessions with the accountant/consultant (also an excellent and patient teacher), and I'm feeling like I can be a useful addition to the small but mighty team.