Become a Volunteer!
So Many Different Ways to Help!
#1 Learn to lead a conversation
Oak Ridge Periodic Tables will be training conversation hosts to lead a variety of different supper series. Table hosts are often selected from a pool of applicants. Trainings can be either virtual or in-person and typically do not exceed 90 minutes. Newly appointed table hosts could sometimes be paired with a co-host to practice and learn.
Our work is based on a simple premise: Healing is a collective enterprise. Strengthening our civic fabric requires talking to each other — investing intentionally in the hard conversations that reveal us as complex and caring human beings.
Together, we help participants with diverse identities and experiences move toward understanding and trust. As we journey together, we often ask questions like:
What needs healing here?
What barriers to engagement need to be named?
How has our community tried to resolve these issues before?
What are our values? With whom do they resonate?
Encouraging others to share their stories, identifying and avoiding harm, and learning to practice active inclusion are key skills that make great table hosts. Vulnerability, honesty, and transparency are key components of leading any conversation.
#2 Logistics and Support
Some people are just gifted adminstrators — they know how to organize work flow, create promotional materials, or sometimes they are just really good a helping people form a buffet line and get moving! Organizers are behind the scenes servants whose skills often go unnoticed until you realize you don’t have them! Every event needs adminstrative support and we welcome these gifted individuals to our planning meetings. We couldn’t do it without them!
#3 The Grunt Work!
Every event needs people who can roll up their sleeves and get stuff done. From setting up tables and chairs, to washing dishes afterward, there’s a long list of seemingly thankless jobs that must be done when an event hits a certain size. Some of my best memories of Table events have been in the kitchens before and after the event itself happens. Making sandwiches, scrubbing pots and pans, and sweeping floors builds friendships that stand apart from all the rest. Knowing that the sweat and calories burned were applied to building a stronger community is a reward unto itself. If you have a servant’s heart and sharing around the table feels intimidating, there is still much you can do to help our mission!
#4 “We Can Sew!”
My mentor (this is David Allred writing) in life, ministry, and community serivce is a man named Martin Fischer. Martin has for many decades now used the phrase “We Can Sew!” when it comes to embracing community. The phrase comes from the movie “The Three Amigos” when a small town is faced with the impossible odds of defeating the villian “El Guapo.” Martin Short and Steve Martin’s characters are trying to rally the town by determining what they are really, really good at. After a lot of head scratching, one woman yells out — “We Can Sew!” Not to put out too many spoilers, needless to say, this seemingly useless task of sewing is put to work in the community to save the day. If you want to see that scene, I have embedded it below.
As Oak Ridge Periodic Tables begins to chart a new future with lots of unknowns, there are skills that many of you possess that we don’t even know how to use yet. I think of my friend, John Spratling who has worked tirelessly on telling the hidden history of the Scarboro 85. John’s superpower is hope and faith — and it’s contagious. Listing a skill like ‘hope’ as something to offer doesn’t seem like the traditional kind of response to a call for help, but without that superpower, how do we proceed?
Whatever skill, talent, or ability you bring we want to be open to thinking ‘outside-the-box’ with regards to how to use it for the cause of unifying and healing our city. Nothing is off the table, not even sewing! Sew like the wind!