Winter 2021 Newsletter
Bumpers. Shortly after sending out the inaugural newsletter, I received an email from a friend of mine asking me what my plans were for Just One Dash (JOD). It was a great question. I have thought about that question a lot over the past few months. The answer that I have come up with is “Bumpers.”
I am not talking about the bumpers on a car. I am talking about bumpers used in bowling. Bumper Bowling blocks the gutters from a lane, so that children of all ages and abilities have a legitimate chance to knock down pins and enjoy themselves. Without bumpers, a child would much more likely quit and give up as their bowling bowl is much more apt to find the gutters than the pins. Strikes and spares are still not a given. There is still work to be done. But Bumper Bowling helps people get excited about bowling who wouldn’t otherwise give it a fair chance.
I want JOD to act as the bumpers for the families we help. I want it to be about forming a connection and establishing a partnership with the families we help. We want to change someone’s narrative. Ideally we want to start at the beginning and work towards a child bowling a strike not a gutter ball.
A strike for JOD would be to form a longer term relationship with families. We would start working with them as they stepped up to the line to throw the bowling ball down the lane towards the pins. We would stay with them - bumping their ball back towards the middle as needed - all the way to the end of lane when their ball crashes into the pins knocking them all down. A strike for us would be to have that child graduate high school with a clear vision of what comes next. Maybe college. Maybe vocational school. Maybe a job. Whatever their path might be we want to help them get there, recognizing we all need the occasional nudge back into the middle. Whereas, if the bumper wasn’t there, it will too often lead you right into the gutter.
One of the main focuses of JOD will be to support any educational and vocational opportunities the people we partner with desire to pursue. That could come in many different forms. Perhaps a tutor. Perhaps the parent could use some help creating or updating their resume. We also want to recognize the day-to-day struggles to make sure bills get paid, the lights stay on and basic day-to-day necessities are met. We want to personalize the experience.
We want to create an organization of professionals and corporations to use as a source of career research. This will function as the JOD version of LinkedIn. If we are working with someone who wants to get into nursing, we can have them ask questions to the nurses in our group. If someone else wants to be an engineer, we can arrange for them to have conversations about their options in that field from engineers in our group.
One of the benefits about starting a new organization is that it starts out as a blank canvas. However, it establishes a platform for doing good. One of the surprising benefits of volunteering is meeting and working with fellow volunteers. I have met so many interesting and amazing people. While the people I have met were so diverse in their backgrounds and culture, the one common element they had is that they wanted to do good. Most of the initial Board of Directors of JOD are people I have met through volunteering. We have received our 501(c)(3) status from the IRS, so we are now official and ready to get to work.
We have started the process of trying to identify the families that whom we hope to work. COVID has definitely impacted this as it has impacted so many things in our lives. It is hard to establish a relationship when quarantining is the norm. As we identify families that could use our support, we will start sharing their stories on our website (www.justonedash.org) and our Facebook and Instagram pages. Each family we work with will have their own Amazon Wish List of basic day-to-day items like toothpaste, soap, deodorant and shampoo. These are items that we take for granted as being available every day. But in a day and age where more and more people are living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay their bills, being able to gather these items for them will alleviate some of these financial pressures. If you go to the Impact section on the website now, you can be introduced to our first family and their Amazon Wish List.
Everyone requires the occasional bump back into the middle. Everyone’s situation, background and story is different. Some paths aren’t straight or easy. Some paths are smoother and clearer than others. But, at the end of the day, everyone’s DASH is the same. Just One Dash is going to be about becoming bumpers. We will be a group of fellow volunteers that will line up together ready to bump people back to the middle, giving them the best chance of bowling their strike.
All the best,
Terry Geary