Betty Marquez, 07-09: Changing the World One Quote at a Time

One of the major duties I had during my year of service was running an after-school tutoring program.

This year, the program evolved into more of a homework center – where students still receive tutoring and get their studying done, but also have the flexibility to just hang out. One of my students was given a journal and decided to turn it into a quote book. So all year, about 10 minutes before we closed down for the evening I would see him scribble away, sometimes noting something he heard during the day, other times copying wisdom from the internet, and on ‘slow news days’ he would go to a book in the library and find quotes in there.

Because the purpose of writing a book is so others will read it, his journal would get passed around often. While many of them were just ridiculously funny, others were quite inspirational. I don’t know where the quote came from (apparently I need to cover plagiarism better), but it read, “If you love your job, you never have to work a day in your life”. It was simple, to the point, and very much describes my situation. I love what I do, and even on the endless nights or the roughest days I wouldn’t trade my job for anything. In short, I love it so much that I do it for free.

The students I work with have always known I was a volunteer – the person I replaced was very open about the program, living in community, and even the stipend amount, so when I got there all I could do was explain myself. They would ask, “Ms. Betty, how do you do this for free?” or “How come you don’t get a real job?” or “Why would you put up with us if you don’t even get paid?” It was great – I got to talk to them about following their hearts, ignoring social norms, and the value of doing meaningful work. It also helps drive home the point that I am not getting anything out of it, so I really do care and really do want to help.

During the senior graduation one of the students read this same quote as part of his speech (no doubt he learned it from the quote book). I thought it was really great that he wanted that for himself and his classmates, but didn’t think I had anything to do with it until he brought it up at the reception. He smiled, and said ‘that was for you’ – all I could do was nod to keep me from crying. I was so touched – it just assures that even a volunteer’s presence can have such an impact on a student’s life, it assures that opening up about my life was not a mistake, and it assures that the school did so much more than teach math and reading. They’re not all going to work in education, and they’re not all going to be volunteers, but if they all feel the need to love their work and dedicate themselves to something that makes them truly happy, then every sacrifice was worth it.