My Perfect Volunteer Job

SAN FRANCISCO-- but this is a reminiscence about when I lived in
BREMEN--In 2004 I went to see a counselor for foreign women. I wanted her help finding the perfect volunteer job. When she found out about my environmental education background, she had an idea: "Why don't we call the city farm? They have a program teaching the children about animals."

Well, I thought about it and decided that wasn't really what I had in mind. I didn't have any experience working with kids, and as a vegetarian, I wasn't keen on teaching them, "This is a pig. It's for Easter dinner..." I just cared more about wild animals anyway.

So I drummed up my best German to try to explain all this. She said, "Wendy, don't do anything you don't want to do! Just tell me what you're interested in." I asked her to call the Naturschutzbund, a wildlife protection organization. She did so, asked if they could use volunteers.

"Wonderful!" said Soenke Hofmann of the Naturschutzbund. "We could really use volunteer counselors for our children's farm camp."