The Bridge Builder

by Will Allen Dromgoole

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near,
"You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way;
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you a bridge at the eventide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."

When you volunteer you are giving something back to your community by lending a helping hand to people and organizations. It’s your chance to be part of something bigger than yourself. What you may not realize is that volunteering also benefits you as an individual. There are many good reasons to get involved, including learning something about yourself.

At Mid-South Lions Sight and Hearing Service we take pride in our ability to find new ways to bridge the gap between people and the miracles they need. One of these ways is our innovative, multi-beneficiary, volunteer program. This program began many years ago when we partnered with Methodist Hospital and is still going strong today. The 2007-2008 year saw many changes for Mid-South Lions, the most significant being our move to the new office at the Hamilton Eye Institute. In October 2007 the much anticipated, state-of-the-art surgery center at HEI was completed and now it is up to Mid-South Lions to staff if with volunteers.

Just like our volunteer program at Methodist, volunteers will perform a multitude of tasks as needed by the surgery center. For each hour that a volunteer works, the surgery center will credit Mid-South Lions and we in turn can use those credits to pay for more sight-saving surgery. So, at the end of the day, volunteers help the Hamilton Eye Institute, they help Mid-South Lions, they help the patients, and they gain personal benefits simply through the act of volunteering. Thus, a multi-beneficiary volunteer program!

We have never been able to provide A Miracle A Day without our dedicated volunteers and we still can’t. So please, if you’ve got the time and the desire, even if it’s only 2 hours per week, come help us bridge the gap between people and their miracles!