When I saw the video of TED prize winner Dave Eggers talking about his new non-profit Once Upon a School at this year’s conference, I was riveted, excited, inspired. But then moped around the house for the rest of the day because when it comes to volunteering, I truly suck. Sure, I’ve done my share of fundraising and event planning for non-profits during my six years in LA, but I’ve never gotten involved at a personal, one-on-one level. As lame as this is going to sound, I wanted to find the right volunteer opportunity.

But then I was invited by Keren Taylor to speak this Saturday at an event for WriteGirl, the non-profit that finds professional women writers to mentor teenage girls in creative writing. Funny how things work: It seems that the right volunteer opportunity has found me.

In addition to their mentoring program, WriteGirl holds monthly seminars for the girls to sharpen their writing skills. This week they’re focusing on journalism, so the superb Patt Morrison will be addressing the group at 12:35pm, followed by a panel on blogging and ethics (that’s me!) at 2:15pm. Afterwards the girls will practice writing essays and blog entries, and I’m 100% committed to leaving that event as a mentor to one of them.

You can read a lot more about WriteGirl’s mission, including lots of articles about what they’ve done. If you’d like to get involved (or if you know a high school girl who loves to write) you can come to the event Saturday (12-4, all information here) and see what it’s all about. Maybe the right volunteer opportunity just found you, too.

Update: Thanks to everyone for the encouragement, but unfortunately I can’t speak at the WriteGirl event tomorrow. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go and check it out, though! And I’m still getting involved, promise.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 3:13 pm and is filed under creating, speaking, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.