Editorial: The Joy of Community — The List Goes On
By • June 12, 2024 0 65
“Taking care of others, helping others, ultimately is the way to discover your own joy and to have a happy life.” — the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Now that we have sung the benefits — civic and personal — of volunteering, we realize the list of opportunities is forever changing. As solutions are implemented and new groups identified, there will always be work to be done in our vibrant community. The list is ongoing; as your community news source, we will continue to report on this.
“What the Dalai Lama and I are offering is a way of handling your worries: thinking about others. You can think about others who are in a similar situation or perhaps even worse a situation, but who have survived, even thrived. It does help quite a lot to see yourself as part of a greater whole.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu
For ideas, we refer you to The Georgetowner’s Town Topics pages, where we cover the neighborhood’s hottest issues. See the DDOT transportation study on page 7 and the Lockwood story on page 9 for examples of matters affecting this community that could use your help. Where else to start? We can think of a Lucky 13 (in random order):
- Children (at our Jelleff Center/Boys & Girls Club, for instance)
- Seniors
- Homelessness and mental health
- Hospitals and the fight against cancer (BellRinger’s Bike Ride is Oct. 26)
- History and historic preservation (in general and at sites such as Dumbarton House and Tudor Place)
- Animal rescue
- Crime prevention (Why not be a block captain?)
- Parks (Join a cleanup!)
- Parking and traffic (Georgetown’s second-oldest problem)
- Pedestrian and cyclist safety (Watch out for loose scooters on the sidewalk and bike racks that edge into the traffic lane!)
- Trees and flowers
- Churches and choirs
- Georgetown’s Black history (a prime site being Mount Zion Cemetery)
Whether you treat volunteerism as a hobby or have a heartfelt passion project, your help is needed. Summer can be a time of reflection and soul searching — and also a time of joy. What would you like to do?
“‘How are we?’ This understanding sees that someone else’s achievements or happiness is a very real way our own. So, rejoicing in others’ good fortune really brings a lot of positive benefits.” — the Dalai Lama
For further inspiration, your summer reading assignment (if you haven’t already guessed) is to read “The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World” by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Over and over, their message is loud and clear: Helping others brings joy.
“Joy is much bigger than happiness. While happiness is often seen as being dependent on external circumstances, joy is not.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu
