Boise Sunrise Rotary and Sleep In Heavenly Peace team up for good
Boise Sunrise Rotary and Sleep In Heavenly Peace team up for good
by Joe Levitch
“No kid sleeps on the floor in our town” is the Sleep in Heavenly Peace slogan. Rotary’s is Service Above Self and the 4-way test. The motto of the Rotary Club of Boise Sunrise is that we strive to leave it better than we found it. This partnership works together seamlessly and is right on the mark.
Many of us have not had the personal experience of being of this situation or this level of hardship but it is not hard to imagine a kid sleeping on the floor and the difference it must/will make to be in their own bed for a change. As a Rotarian and board member in charge of community outreach, I get to be involved in all sorts of projects. Some are more meaningful than others. So far, I have had the honor to work with them on 3 occasions and each time I get a delightfully warm Rotary feeling that I did some meaningful work.
SLEEP IN HEAVENLY PEACE is an Idaho original. Their mission is to make it easy for groups to build and assemble bunk beds for needy folks in our communities. They have effective partnerships with big box stores and tool manufacturers and these firms supply the materials to make bunk beds. All we had to do was pony up some additional funds and then show up ready to get the assembly line humming creating new beds.
When I initially arrived for this Boise Sunrise service project, I was given a safety briefing and then got geared up to work. Effortlessly, I was swept up in the activity. Before I knew it I was working shoulder to shoulder with other Rotarians and their family members. It made me feel what a musician playing an instrument in a symphony must feel. The whir of generators, the cutting of wood, and the buzzing of palm sanders sounded like a beautiful beehive to me. I was actively working on making components of a beautiful finished product.
This poem came to mind as I got to help assemble the finished product, I wish to share it with you and I hope you enjoy it. At the end of the day, I knew I had made a difference and that is why I love to volunteer. My brothers and sisters at Boise Sunrise are a terrific team to work with as we all lean I to leaving it better than we found it.
To Be of Use
By Marge Piercy
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task,
who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.