Profile by david smith

Help Yourself; Volunteer for Others

Written and photographed

by David Smith

Minutes after Alisa arrived

these are just some of the things they had for the kids to do. Their goal was to show these kids the best time of their lives and to show them how great the world really is, seeing how most of them have and was so involved with this never had a good life. Alisa particular trip. loves the aspect of helping

with her volunteer crew to the Costa Rican Orphanage, a little boy grabbed her hand, signaling that he wanted to be friends with her. He didn’t let go of her hand for the rest of the trip. As the day went on, the volunteers introduced with kids and stated “I think themselves to the kids and showed them what they had in kids are so important store for them. Little did the because they are our kids know they were about to future”, which is one of the have the time of their lives.

Dancing, playing sports, face reasons she put so much time into organizing the activities painting, murals on walls;

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lisa is the co-founder of the volunteer group “AI Explore”, Ai meaning “love” in japanese, so the name of the group is basically “I love to Explore”. She is constantly doing activities that benefit communities. There are regulars in her group and also new people constantly joining. She does a variety of activities, all focused on the good of helping others. She goes to Senior centers to cheer up elders. She does this by finding people in her group who have a passion for music and has them sing songs to the old folks. She takes people’s creativity and passions and channels that

many things that are optimistic if you look for it, and the more i looked for it the more i saw”. She looks for the good in every situation, and attracts people with the same mindset.

Alisa is a glass half-full. One thing Alisa worries about is how to get people interested in these projects. A lot of people come for just one event and don’t return, but she hopes that more become intrigued by her group and want to come back. When its apparent that not many people are interested in an activity shes posted on Meetup, AI’s host site, towards making others feel she starts trying to actively better. She also does activities recruit people. Changing the that help the environment, title and description, sending such as cleaning up a local emails and reminders, as well beach. I went on a trip with as personally asking people if her to a farm, and we learned they want to come out are all a lot about self-sufficiency things Alisa does to try and and an alternative way of liv- get people interested. Still, ing that many of us do not fol- it can either be a success or low. Alisa has also done some a failure. Maintaining the more serious projects such as group as far as funding goes going on trips to developing can be challenging as well, countries, like Costa Rica, to because a lot of it comes from volunteer. She has traveled out of pocket; website costs, with Habitat for Humanity, snacks, tips, and craft supplies Red Cross, and Child Advomust be covered somehow. cates. She is always trying Other problems arise while new things to benefit others, actually volunteering, such as which in turn makes her hap- spreading the resources they py. Her overall goal is to take have among the needy equalthe optimism from within her ly. When adults and especially and spread it among as many kids are always given things people as she can. The motto by the volunteers, they start to for Ai explore is “A glass half expect it. Kids will run up to full”. “In the earth there are so them with their hands out, ex-

pecting to get candy or other goods, “and they keep hounding you, which after a while actually doesn’t feel good”.

The volunteers must be mindful of how much they give and to whom they give to. If they give things to one family but not another, that family may question why they didn’t get anything, which creates conflict and tension in their community.

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lisa was born in Japan, grew up and attended college in Ohio, then moved

to Silicon Valley with her boyfriend as an Adult. She stayed because she loved everything about the area. She works as a freelance web designer, which gives her a lot of time to go out and volunteer because she is hardly barred by a work schedule. Being in the high tech industry in the Silicon valley, it is not easy to keep a job. Alisa was getting laid off constantly, “it seems like with every job i get, the end is always coming”. She

considered many jobs such as a nurse and legal assistant, and eventually decided that web design paid well and was satisfying enough to keep her going, but knew there was still something that she was longing for. When she went to Guatemala with Habitat for Humanity for the first time, she knew that was what she wanted to do. “THIS

is fascinating”, she says excitingly, “this I have to do again”. She enjoys

her work, but it doesn’t fulfill her life’s passion, which is what she was looking to do.

“It doesn’t feed my soul”, according to Alisa. She feels it’s more satisfying working with people and “being the best world citizen” she can be. After spending some time with Habitat for Humanity, Child Advocates, and Red Cross, she realized that she did not have enough time to commit

to all these organizations that she became so fond of. There were so many things she enjoyed doing: helping in animal shelters, organic farming and composting, education for children, women’s rights, etc.. that she couldn’t decide which to do. So instead of half-committing to all these organizations, she co-founded her own volunteer group “Ai Explore” with a couple of close friends that are no longer involved in

the group. “If my gift can be for other people to find ways to volunteer and to connect with other people and to connect with the world then I’m happy to do it”. She has done around 45 volunteer events, committing her time to others, not only to benefit them but also herself. AI explore slowly gained recognition as Alisa hosted more and more activites. Sending out emails, putting the meetup link in her email signature, making a facebook and twitter account all helped her group become more popular.

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he small auditorium in a retirement home is filled with elders awaiting a relaxing performance of music.

In the back are snacks and drinks brought and set up by Alisa and her crew. As we slowly pace around the room

with our cameras in hand, Alisa introduces herself to the people in the room. These people have lived the majority of their lives, and are here

retirement home even came up to sing. A man who is apart of Alisas volunteer group introduces each act. At the end of the show, Alisa goes

prefers to do a small introduction, help run the background of the show, then talk to people one on one afterwards.

because they chose to come and see some entertainment, put on by people who want to see them happy. People play some of their favorite songs while the elders sit back and listen. You can see the appreciation in these peoples faces.

Alisa, who says she can speak little japanese, sees an elderly Japanese woman named Limb, who was trying to communicate to us but could not because she only spoke japanese. She took Limbs hand and held it with both her hands while greeting her and introducing herself. Limb laughs and comes out of her shell, talking to Alisa excitedly. Volunteer performers played songs from musicals as well as songs that are dear to their heart. One lady in the

and speaks with almost all the people. She congratulates the performers on their work and asks the elders how they liked

itat. “Burritos!”, Alisa exclaims as she walks up with her box of food. She goes and instantly starts chatting with a

the show. Alisa seemed to like to sit back and observe the show, admiring the work that she put into it. Rather than being a hype man up-front, she

man volunteering there, who I later found out had never met Alisa which surprised me seeing how fast she connected to him. We look around and

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e arrive in Lake Cunningham park and see Alisa waiting there for us.

We hop out of our car with all our gear and she greets us, “Hey Guys, we’ve done most of the work here already, but we’re off to deliver some food to the workers”. She gets in our car with a box of burritos and chips, and we head to our first destination. We arrive to a house that’s being worked on by the volunteers at Hab-

in the roof and how one woman almost fell through the roof, I’ll have to go share that with my friend Pam”.

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people are not slowing down just because we got there.

Alisa talks with a few of the people sitting down and asks them how they’re doing and comments on how the house is coming along. We then take off to the next house thats awaiting food. At this next house, people were really getting into the construction of the house. Alisa goes and talks with some of the people standing around. She is genuinely fascinated by the stories they are telling as she laughs at the anecdotes told by the crew members. After she finishes her conversation, she comes up to me, “You know, this is what I do it all for. When I can connect and share with the people around me who have the same mindset as I do. I love hearing about their funny stories like finding a beehive

lisa hopes to be able to expand her group into a bigger movement and turn

it into a business if possible.

“As far as turning it into a business, there are so many legalities: paperwork, pay for this pay for that, and i think the other thing is my own fear, how would people respond, would they want to pay, are they willing to pay? Or are they going to completely lose interest or think badly of me

if i start charging? I think its a fear of the unknown for sure, but i think since i have so much support and i have friends who are also starting up their own business that um, it will inspire me to take that leap of faith as well”.

She hopes to keep it going for years longer and aspires it to be an official non-profit or maybe a benefit corporation. Alisa doesn’t have an end point in her volunteering career, she isn’t going to stop when shes made enough money to quit her day job or has helped enough people. There is no goal that she’s aiming to reach; all she knows is that at one point she will decide, “ok, i think i’m about done, i think its taken me everywhere i’ve wanted to go and has gone everywhere i’ve wanted to take it”.

“If you can make people happy, then their happiness will be infectious and they will try to make other people happy. If you have enough of it in your life then you will want people to feel the same happiness in their own lives.”