Shelby Andress, Search Institute Adjunct Senior Consultant and Facilitator
I often ask workshop participants to talk about “an adult who helped you, when you were a teenager, to become the person you are today.” Lately, however, I’ve been inspired to ask a different question: “When was a child or a teenager there for you, just when you needed them?”
Earlier this year, I was feeling down after receiving some very sad news. Then one day I found a bright pink flyer stuck on my front door. In bold print it announced C & K Services, and listed services like pet sitting ($8 a day), garden watering and weeding ($10 a day). I had let the maple seedlings in a boulevard garden take over and it seemed like thousands of them were staring me in the face, so I called the phone number on the flyer. A very young voice answered the phone. “Hello, I’m Shelby Andress, and I would like to inquire about C&K Services. Could I please talk with Marty?” “This is Marty,” came the reply. We arranged for Marty, who was ten years old, to come with her mother to discuss doing yard work with me.
After speaking with Marty and her mother, we arranged for the first day of pulling maple seedlings. Marty and Ellyn, her business partner (also age 10), rode into the driveway on their bikes. When I asked them to tell me about their business, Ellyn explained, “Well, Marty and I learned that we are really good at teamwork, so we thought, Why not form our own business? So we did.”
My doldrums lifted and these charming girls, good workers, are becoming friends of mine. It’s been like this on my street for 15 years. We don’t have a huge yard, but the usual work rolls around each spring and summer—weeding, laying mulch, edging gardens, mowing, raking leaves, and washing screens. I’m a very casual gardener, so a few hours of help go a long way.
I’ve reflected on the neighborhood kids who have been there just when I needed them. When a family member was ailing, I was working full-time and couldn’t keep up with housework. Kaitlin and Jackie (from across the street) dusted, scrubbed floors, and ironed. When my husband, Jim, needed a companion to help him during his struggle with Alzheimer’s, neighbor Robbie, only 12 and saving his money for his first pickup, came summer afternoons and talked fishing and hunting with Jim. The day we were to move Jim to a nursing home, Robbie came to our house with two photos for Jim’s nursing home room—one of Robbie with a huge fish he’d caught, and another with his first deer, both of these vivid reminders of Jim’s own growing-up years in northern Minnesota. Later Robbie became our all-around yard person. Even later, he trained in his younger brother, Sam.
During the early years after my husband’s death, yard work was lonely for me, so not only did the companionship get me outside, but the tasks seemed lighter, and I started to realize that this work was “neighborhood asset building.”
I try to keep in touch with the kids that have helped me out over the past years, and I hear great stories from all over the world. I hear about mission trips, science classes, baseball games, leadership institutes, house cleaning, college coursework, and jobs. Hearing these stories keeps me connected to these kids, even long after they’ve left the neighborhood.
This is my story; next time you’re conducting a training, leading a group, or teaching a class, try asking a new question: “When was a child or a teenager there for you, just when you needed them?” You might be surprised at the answers you get. And once you get adults talking about that child or teenager, you’ll be amazed at the bright spirit those memories bring, and the level of gratitude that everyone feels. It’s this gratitude that provides a great basis for the work we do as asset builders.
