30 Before 30 - VOLUNTEER

So I had been close with the previous President of the Suffolk Reading Council, and we spoke about taking the council in new directions this coming year.  She was offered an amazing job close to where her husband had just accepted and an equally amazing opportunity up in Northern Virginia.  Although I was extremely happy for her I was sad because I didn't know where it left the council.  The council was almost completely dismissed by most.  However I went to my first Virginia Leadership Meeting in December of this past year.  WOW, what an amazing group of women, they certainly gave me some good advice and some really great starting points.  Within this organization there are some truly remarkable people who are wanting to make a difference in the literacy of tomorrow.

So, I am going to fast forward a bit and say at the beginning of it all there were a handful of members, yes I could count them all on one hand.  Now we are 33 strong and I would like to think that we are going to be growing with every event we hold.  We are going to grow to amazing heights!  Ok, COMPLETE optimist right here!  I am just so excited.

Ok, so this has been a year of me stepping outside of my shell.  I have been ready for a change but it has definitely come quietly to me.  I think I was ready to make a leap and my life at the moment is about me finding myself in the baby steps.  This may seem like all jibber jabber at the moment, but what I mean to say is that I wanted to just be able to step into the role of an "amazing leader".  However, that is just too big of a leap for me, since I am for the most part an introvert and a person who LOVES my personal time to sit and craft or read or listen to an audiobook just to have time to myself.  Now, I am loving the feeling of making an impact on a council I have been lucky to get involved with.  That being said I was put up for and volunteered to be the President-Elect for the Suffolk Reading Council and I couldn't be more excited.

Today I was able to be in a photo in our local newspaper for the work that our council did this past month with donating over 1,000 books so that kids in homeless shelters could have a book of their own as well as having lots of reading material for kids who may not have much to choose from.  I am very happy that our organization could donate to this cause!

Here is the photo for the paper.  If you click on it, it will link to the newspaper article.

Not the best picture, I will absolutely love the sun to come out and melt all this snow away and take away my pasty skin of winter!  But that's all for now!  Thanks for reading.