After donating 40 hours of time in service to The Bridge, we asked one of our amazing volunteers to tell us why they wanted to volunteer with our organization. Below is their response, in their own words, in English and Spanish.

“As a small child I could always remember the way in which my mother would discipline us, she would not do anything rash but instead she would talk to us about whatever happened. She would sit us down and try to talk things out, I recall crying a multitude of times, I would hold her and be caressed within her arms. And all these years later I made the realization that I learned that from my mother, whenever me and my boyfriend would have anything to say or I would feel like he was off the instinctual thing I did was talk to him. Every single time that happened I would always try to get him to talk about it, because speaking about it was much better than keeping things bottled up and then having everything explode. Just making sure he was okay, taking care of his mental health and everything is what really drove me to help The Bridge. Their mission to help families and kids in need, in order to achieve emotional and social health really spoke to me. Because to me, nothing is more important to the development of a child, and a family as a whole than to be in a place where they can be stable. Even in High School, emotional development interested me, during my psychology classes I always knew that I wanted to be there for people. Whether that was directly or indirectly I wanted to help them, so that people could be the very best person that they can be, so that people don’t have to feel like they are alone. That no matter what people tend to think, there are people that care about them. People care about you, people want you to succeed. And even if you don’t know me, I am here rooting for you, I believe in you and I know that you’re going to do great things.”

“Cuando era pequeño, siempre recordaba la forma en que mi madre nos disciplinaba, no hacía nada imprudente, sino que nos hablaba de lo que sucedío. Nos sentaba e intentaba hablar, recuerdo haber llorado muchas veces, la abrazaba y me acariciaba en sus brazos. Y todos estos años más tarde me di cuenta de que aprendí eso de mi madre, siempre que mi novio y yo tuviéramos algo que decir o sentiría que estaba algo malo de lo instintivo que hice fue hablar con él. Cada vez que sucedía, siempre intentaba que hablara sobre eso, porque hablar de eso era mucho mejor que mantener las cosas encerradas y luego hacer que todo explotara. Solo asegurándome de que estaba bien, cuidando su salud mental y todo es lo que realmente me llevó a ayudar a The Bridge. Su misión de ayudar a las familias y los niños necesitados, a fin de lograr la salud emocional y social, realmente me habló. Porque para mí, nada es más importante para el desarrollo de un niño y una familia en general que estar en un lugar donde puedan ser estables. Incluso en la escuela secundaria, el desarrollo emocional me interesaba, durante mis clases de psicología siempre supe que quería estar allí para las personas. Ya sea que fuera directa o indirectamente, quería ayudarlos, para que las personas pudieran ser la mejor persona posible, para que las personas no tengan que sentirse como si estuvieran solas. Que no importa lo que las personas tiendan a pensar, hay personas que se preocupan por ellos. La gente se preocupa por ti, la gente quiere que tengas éxito. E incluso si no me conoces, estoy aquí para apoyarte, creo en ti y sé que harás grandes cosas.”

Thank you to all of our hard-working and caring volunteers! If you are interested in volunteering with The Bridge, see our open opportunities here.