Opinion
Editor’s note: There’s a cure for the post-election blues, doing service
The “day of service” at this year’s Somos Conference was a welcome relief for electeds and other volunteers after the presidential election.
Residents at Centro Esperanza Para La Vejez, an assisted living facility in Carolina, Puerto Rico, sit in the front row at a Somos conference “day of service,” singing along with volunteers to the tune, “Besame Mucho.” Ralph R. Ortega
The vibe at this year’s Somos conference was certainly off coming after Donald Trump’s victory on election night. Fortunately, the best cure for the post-election blues while attending the annual event in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where elected officials from New York gather in support of the commonwealth, was to participate in a “day of service.” This tradition organizes volunteers from the conference to engage with Puerto Ricans and do community service that directly benefits them. Whether that meant doing construction repair work on nonprofit buildings, stuffing backpacks with school supplies or preparing meals and playing bingo with senior citizens, the opportunity to serve provided a welcome relief and distraction from the bigger problems conference attendees left back home in New York.
On Friday, some 40 volunteers – most of them nonprofit workers, along with a handful of elected officials like New York City Deputy Mayor Ana Almanzar, Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli – broke away from conference networking to help at Esperanza Para La Vejez, a struggling nonprofit assisted living residence in Carolina that houses about 50 elderly residents on increasingly scarce federal funding. Volunteers filled care packages with toiletries, cooked roast pork as well as rice and beans, and played dominoes with the residents. There also were songs, including a sing-along version of “Besame Mucho,” and a rowdy game of bingo.
Paola Martinez, director of government relations at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, which organized the effort at the residence, thanked the volunteers for choosing to do a day of service rather than sleeping in. Then she rallied them like troops. “We have a lot of work to do, and we are the ones that never stop working,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who’s in the White House.”