Who Has Time To Love Long Beach?
Who Has the Time to Love the Community?
60 seconds in a minute. 60 minutes in an hour. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. These are numbers we are all familiar with because we all face the question of what to do with our time. How do you use your time? What does it mean to be generous with your time? What would it look like to love your community with your time?
Jean Rosa has faced the question of how to use her time before - in fact, if you’ll pardon the pun, many times. She has worked in the home and outside of the home. She has worked full-time and part-time. When her children were young, she volunteered at their school and over the years she has given her time to the church, being involved in women’s ministry and other areas.
Within the last four years, times have changed for Jean. With her husband, Paul, newly retired, Jean began praying for something for her husband to do with his time. What God provided was the opportunity for both Jean and Paul to attend a group study on the Externally Focused Church and later host these small groups at their home. It was out of this study that Jean faced the simple question of what to do with her time to love her community. It was a new question for Jean. She had always done a lot with her time, but it had always been to benefit her family and church. Challenged by the idea of loving her community, Jean looked at the list of opportunities available through Hope for Long Beach, saw the listing for Meals on Wheels and decided she could do that.
Each Tuesday Jean volunteers with the Long Beach Meals on Wheels. Along with a partner, Jean drives one of the five routes delivering hot meals to people. While her partner (known as the friendly visitor) brings the food into the house, Jean takes the next meal out of the hot box and readies it for delivery. At each of the 22-24 stops on her route, the people receive a hot meal and a sack lunch delivered up to five days a week for a nominal cost. These nutritionally balanced hot meals and sack lunches are prepared each day in a central kitchen at a church in downtown Long Beach. From the central kitchen, the meals are sent out to three additional Meals on Wheels satellite sites in Long Beach. The action then shifts to teams of two volunteers (a driver and a friendly visitor) who deliver the food. By receiving these meals, many home bound people are able to be and stay independent. Something as simple as delivering regular meals also allows many senior citizens to stay in their homes rather than moving to a facility.
Ask Jean about Meals on Wheels and you can tell she enjoys it – – her eyes sparkle. Jean says, “I am drawn to it and can’t imagine my life without it. Sometimes all I have to offer is a smile or hello, but that’s enough.” It has led to friendships with clients and other volunteers and even provided her opportunities to share her faith. Volunteering with Meals on Wheels has made Jean aware of the great diversity of people in Long Beach and their many needs. “It has made me thankful for my health and family,” she says.
Jean works along with some 40 other volunteers at the North Long Beach site. In fact, most of the volunteers were recruited by being asked to come help for a month and ended up staying because they enjoyed it so much. Jean’s husband, Paul, and fellow Grace attendees, Sara Whalen and Betty Jones, also do routes once a week. Others from the Grace family, like Alexa McNabb, Jeff Parker and Brian Chung, have served by helping design a new logo and brochure.
What does it look like to love your community with your time? There are as many answers to that question as there are people, but they all have a common denominator. Like Jean’s story, they all begin with the decision to do something to love your community. Jean confesses with amazement, “For those two hours a week, it’s not about me or my family but my community, and I am blessed by it.”
Why not do something in the local community? Step outside your circle of comfort and discover the blessings of being generous with your time.