Shortly after I retired, I agreed to serve on the board of the nonprofit Outreach Depot, which I had written about in the past and greatly admired.
This group was born in 2010 as a mission project of Wesley United Methodist Church in Bethlehem and relocated several years ago to a warehouse in East Allentown.
It offers furniture and household items from which qualified people — referred by governmental and nonprofit agencies and arriving at half-hour intervals only by appointment Tuesdays and Saturdays — can make selections according to their tastes and needs. Donors can drop items off at the warehouse or arrange pickup by volunteers in the group’s truck.
The problem was that I still was teaching at Lehigh University every Tuesday and treasured my Saturday morning trips to the Allentown Farmer’s Market with my young grandson, Luke. So I wasn’t available to help on either of the days when I was needed. They didn’t even need my writing skills. All I could do was attend occasional board meetings, and I was feeling guilty about not even visiting the warehouse, let alone working there.
One Saturday, Luke was attending a birthday party, so I decided to stop briefly at the warehouse to speak with volunteers and see how well stocked the warehouse was. It turned out that my first appearance there was amazingly well timed.
The volunteer who had been scheduled to help load furniture that Saturday had called in sick, so the only people there were elderly women helping with check-in and preparing disaster relief kits used in times of crisis locally and around the world.
Just after I arrived, a client showed up with a rented truck to collect several large items she had selected. Because I was there, we were able to load her items, some of them quite large. Without me, she probably would have had to return another day and rent another truck.
I stepped down from the board after one year, realizing I couldn’t offer them the time and help they need. But I’ll never forget the Godwink that called me there the one day I was needed.
