Oprah's Big Give, Community Service & Student Loans

I was flipping through some sites today and ran across another plug for Oprah's Big Give. What an incredible concept. What really hit me was the team working to help a young man at UCLA with his student loans to fulfill his dream of working with children with physical deformities free of charge. It is amazing to me the number of people who are going to school not to just better themselves, but better their communities.

In September 2005, I enrolled in Duquesne University's Bachelor of Science Humane Leadership program. I applied left and right for scholarships, but the truth is, they are so competitive, and the few I received barely covered one term. I graduated in December 2008 and had to get another loan for the balance remaining, so in six months, I get to start repaying $41,000 in student loans. You can believe I've been saying my prayers about this. I'm one of those people that live paycheck to paycheck, and I used to think I was the only one, but I'm realizing that I'm not. With the gas prices now, I can even barely afford to make it to work and home each week.

So basically what it comes down to is how can you justify doing something good with your life if you are going to be forced to struggle not only with emotional tolls but financial ones? Even presidential candidate Obama wants more youth to turn their lives to servicing their community as opposed to corporate America. The candidate even proposes tuition assistance for those willing to put in 100 community service hours a year. Finally, someone who gets what I'm trying to do with my life.

I grew up as the child of corporate America parents: my dad owned his own architect firm in Atlanta, my mom was in management with BellSouth. My siblings all went corporate, my brother even following Mom's footsteps with BellSouth Mobility (Cingular, AT&T, whoever they are this month). But I never saw my parents happy with their work; my dad was always gone away from home, and Mom always brought her work home with her and had little time to do much else. Weekends on Tybee or out on the boat were ours, and I treasured them. But I learned early on that wasn't what I wanted for my life. So here I am, the "black sheep" of the family, struggling little sister who would rather bag dog poop at 6 am seven days a week than deal with corporate BS 40 hours a week. Now, if I could just get Oprah's people to spread the love a little this direction...

PS - edited to note that a report says the 5th episode of Oprah's Big Give was filmed in Atlanta, with contestants crisscrossing Georgia. Darn, always a day late.