It was a dark night in Brooklyn when all hell broke loose. We were in our headquarters, a trailer on an empty lot, when suddenly a call came over the short wave radio: "Male Shot!" we ran to the bus with joy in our hearts. A life we could save! We took the three minute ride to the site of a nine year old boy shot in the head, left to die. His mother, with tears in her eyes and pain in her heart, held him, and asked for her daughter. I looked in the store to see her fourteen year old daughter who was shot once in the arm and in the leg. As my co-workers worked on the boy, I worked alone on the girl. We got to save the girl. we did our best, but we couldn't save the boy. the mother also needed care, a lot of love, and that's what she got from us.Events like this make me sad and happy at the same time.
   I had the honor of seeing in the month of April two years ago a new born baby come into this world. It was a day like any other. I was on my way to a friend's house. Out of the clear blue we heard the yelling of a lady on her way to the hospital to give birth: "My baby is coming!" We ran to the car to see what was going on and told her, "We can help!" She let us help her. I took off her pants and under clothes and in no time a baby boy was born. We rushed the woman and her infant to the hospital in the car. It was a baby boy weighing seven pounds. It's hard to believe I could do things like this. God put me here to save lives, and that is what I want to do for a living.

   How does the Bed/Stuy Ambulance Corps affect the quality of life in the community? What does the author gain from being an ambulance volunteer?

   The following poem about work with Alzheimer Disease patients, also amplifies the ideas in Albert Huffstickler's poem, Intention:

   Being a volunteer at Cobble Hill Nursing Home is very enjoyable as well as educational. I've been with the V.T.C. program for about 6 months and dealing with Alzheimer Disease residents has given me a different aspect on life itself. I'm 19 years old and my goal is to become a nurse in the LPN field. Volunteering for Cobble Hill isn't just a place I can kill time or take as a joke; you learn to have patience, an open heart and give as much love as you can to those around you. Before I became a volunteer life to me was useless and I honestly felt that I wasn't doing what I really wanted to do. But now it's a whole different story. All I would like to say to students in or out of New York State is, "Don't let life pass you by. Be all that you can be, and enjoy it to the full extent. Volunteering is a work of magic!"

   People often complain about feeling lonely, isolated, not having a sense of belonging. But, each writer published here experienced empathy and a feeling of belonging at sites where they volunteer. Volunteering helps to create positive change in attitudes.

   The need for community is expressed by all peoples. In 1570 the Indian leader Deganawidah wanted the representatives of the five Iroquois tribes who had made peace and were forming a new confederation to understand that they were part of the same community.

   'We bind ourselves together,' said Deganawidah, 'by taking hold of each other's hands so firmly and forming a circle so strong that if a tree should fall upon it, it could not shake nor break it, so that our people and grandchildren shall remain in the circle in security, peace, and happiness.'
                                from the Iroquois Council of the Great Peace, as told in The White Roots of Peace
                                Paul A. Wallace, Ira J. Friedman, Inc., 1946
 

  Since there is no obvious beginning or end to a circle it often is used to symbolize something important. Deganawida used it as a metaphor to illustrate how the members of the tribes needed to bind themselves into a unity.

   There are many ways to create a sense of community. Most people draw strength from a circle of friends, even if it isn't a formalized group, or blood relatives. Millions of people worldwide have a sense of community through rituals of friendship, religious, fraternal, political and business relationships, weddings, births, coming of age parties, graduations, the opening of business, the closing of business, retirement, deaths. The authors whom you have just read feel a sense of community at the places where they serve as volunteers. What is the most recent public expression of community that you attended?

   Draw your own circle of friends. Put a portrait of yourself in the middle. Whose names will you write on the circle? Parents? Sisters or brothers? Cousins? Friends? Neighbors? Doctors? Teachers?