I got an email this morning from my cousin requesting volunteers to work the 33rd annual National Down Syndrome Congress. Volunteers will be acting as guides, group leaders, and friends for teens and adults with Down syndrome at their annual conference where they will be participating in workshops and talent shows. It’s going to be at the Hyatt Regency in Garden Grove on a Sunday at the end of the month.

I immediately wrote back to her telling her I’m in. I’d done a similar volunteer position for the Special Olympics with my then-boyfriend on June 17, 2001 for the Sheriff’s Department (I know the date because I’m looking at a labeled Polaroid of me taken at the event, tacked to the front wall of my desk, among various photos of Dodo). I’d also done a lot of volunteer work in high school for CSF and Key Club. What good times we had back then! My cousin was also in Key Club and I’d see her on occasion at large volunteer events.

There’s something about volunteering for the less fortunate that really opens your eyes and your heart. I can’t wait.