I don't mean to come across as an advocate here (there are plenty of worthy organizations in the world worth our time and energy), but let me tell you a little bit about it. OMK is basically the Army's new support organization for kids whose parents have been (or are going to be) shipped into combat. It hosts events where these kids can meet and interact with other kids who are going through the same things that they are and provides counseling, etc. as needed from trained military personnel.
The day started out rough. We were told to arrive at 11:30 to meet with the other volunteers and prep our activities for the kids' arrival (who wouldn't be arriving until 12:30). Of course, our space cadet of an event coordinator and the other NJHS-aged volunteers didn't arrive until 12:30 as the first kids were starting to show up. I have no idea where they had been, but they arrived just in time to avert sure disaster. We scurried to learn the activities that we'd be doing that day and then a group of 15 kids was thrown at us.
From that point on, it was pure gold. We made sock puppets, played with moonwalks and other inflatable toys, made polka-dotted stress balls, and attempted to make our own homemade ice cream. The ice cream didn't turn out so well, some bags ruptured creating salty ice cream, and others didn't quite congeal correctly due to lack of ice, but everything else was a lot of fun.
The best part was the connections that we made with the kids: all sorts of lil' tykes held on to my hand as we walked down the hall, I taught a couple kids how to use an automatic hand dryer, and we made funny faces for minutes without end with some of them. At the end of the day, we attended "Military 101", an overview of their parents' jobs, the equipment they use, and the difficulty of deployment. When the speaker got to the part about how difficult it could be for soldiers to come back one little girl confided in me, "That's why my parents got divorced." I'm normally not one to get real sappy about things, but befriending those young boys and girls was very special to me. I was sorry when we had to leave at the end of the day.
Unfortunately, you couldn't say the same of all of the high school volunteers. Hopefully it didn't impact the kids' experience at all, but they were screwing around most of the afternoon instead of keeping an eye on their charges like they were supposed to. When all of the planned activities had run out and we were waiting for parents to retrieve their children, we stayed in the hallway with the kids as they drew pictures and built robots that drew pictures. Meanwhile, the high schoolers played fantastic games with themselves in a different room like throwing M&M's high in the air to each other and catching them in their mouths.
Oh well. The important thing is that Meaghan and I enjoyed it so much that we're probably going to do it again with a different batch of kids down in the Roch the weekend of May 17th.
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