One of the more renowned (although not necessarily any more worthy than other things I've volunteered for) opportunities I've had was volunteering as a facilitator for the "Listening to the City" town hall meeting, July 20, 2002 in New York City.
Let me backtrack a tad first, though. On Sept. 11, 2001 I was living in Seoul, South Korea, teaching English as a Foreign Language. Since I was teaching adults, some of my classes were very early in the morning so that people could come before work. I hadn't watched TV the night before, so I only learned of the attacks the next morning when I arrived for my 6 a.m. class. When I arrived everyone was very sullen and quiet and I think it was some Korean teachers who asked if I'd heard the news. Since I hadn't, they told me. My immediate knee jerk reaction was, "Oh, no, that means were going to war."
I mean, that's not what I wanted, but I knew my homeland well enough to know that that would be next. Even as I learned more in the following days I was convinced that what needed to be done is find the culprits of this criminal attack and bring them to justice. Well, I also knew that the USA doesn't support the International Criminal Court (which wasn't yet active at that time), so I knew that wouldn't happen.
Anyway, I'm getting off the track now. The Koreans were very sympathetic about what happened, and, of course, it was a terrible thing.
When I found out about the opportunity to participate in the Listening to the City event, I was back in Philadelphia (yes, I do get around, not always by desire though). I've uploaded here a copy of my handwritten notes at the facilitator training July 19, 2002 and also a copy of a card, part of a set we volunteer facilitators were all given, that was painted by an artist whose office was in One World Trade Center. The painting is right-side-up and the description is the back of the opened card.
July 20, 2002, the day of Listening to the City was undoubtedly one of the most emotional and draining days in my whole life. I was really wiped out by the end of the day, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one. Balancing being attentive to what was being said, how people seemed to be doing, trying to include everyone and follow what we were supposed to be doing was daunting, mainly because of the emotional nature of the situation.The organizers of the event, as is their usual policy in such meetings, tried to really mix up the demographics at each table. That meant people from the city, people from outlying areas, people who lost someone in the attack, officials of various sorts, and ages, gender, ethnic and socioeconomic class were all mixed up. I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of those people related up close to the 9/11 events found some catharsis in that meeting. And maybe I did too.
After that I volunteered once for a regular town hall meeting (i.e., a more routine one not related to 9/11 or other crisis) in Washington, D.C.. but otherwise the timing and place haven't meshed for me to act on other requests for facilitators at such meetings.
The last time I was in New York City I didn't go to the site where the attack was. Instead, I had lunch there with my aunt and uncle (once removed or something like that) and then went walking around Central Park that lovely Sept. Saturday. I'd read that Central Park had really been fixed up nicely so that it's a safer and more attractive place than it had been for a few decades. I was very impressed and I didn't even see the half of it!
On that note, I'll bid you adieu for now...
~ Meg
