Personal Reflection

• What do you think after listening to Bono’s talk?
• How does Bono make you feel?
• Do you feel Bono is leading by example?
• Do you want to volunteer your time for Africa?
• Would you prefer to volunteer locally?

Giving Of Oneself

• What abilities do you possess?
• What groups of less fortunate people would benefit from your abilities?
• Which ability would you like to give voluntarily?
• Which group would you like to help?

Volunteer Organizations

• Which volunteer organizations can connect you with your target population?
• In what ways is this organization successful?
• What challenges must this organization overcome?
• Will this organization benefit from your abilities?
• Which group fits you best?

What is My Level of Civic Volunteerism?

By this point, I expect you might be wondering about my commitment to civic volunteerism. In addition to maintaining a full time private law practice, I joined the Sons of the American Legion with Post 133 in Woodbury, NJ, in 2014. Furthermore, I have held active membership in Kiwanis Club of Greater Woodbury since 2015.

American Legion, Post 133, Woodbury, NJ

The American Legion was chartered and incorporated by Congress in 1919 as a patriotic veterans organization devoted to mutual helpfulness. It is the nation’s largest wartime veterans service organization, committed to mentoring youth and sponsorship of wholesome programs in our communities, advocating patriotism and honor, promoting strong national security, and continued devotion to our fellow servicemembers and veterans.

The American Legion has given me the opportunity to establish and run an annual blood drive at my Post. Initially, I began researching this initiative in 2014 at the request of my Squadron Commander. Eventually, in February 2015 we hosted our first successful drive. Subsequently, I accepted the responsibility for coordinating a second blood drive in 2015. Furthermore, I spearheaded another drive in 2016.

The opportunity to coordinate the blood drive has brought me into contact with the media, Red Cross employees, prospective and actual donors, and other members of my Post. For example, the responsibility requires publicizing the event through press releases and public service announcements on social media, in the news, and on the radio. Additionally, Red Cross employees meet with me to discuss logistics, set goals, provide additional publicity material, and coordinate the arrival and departure of Red Cross Staff. Furthermore, it requires correspondence with prospective and confirmed donors by regular and electronic mail. Finally, coordinating a blood drive requires preparing the hall before the drive, overseeing the setup and shutdown, and returning the hall in the condition we received it.

Kiwanis Club of Greater Woodbury, NJ

With respect to my Kiwanis Club, to borrow a meme, I am not only a member, I am also the President-Elect. Indeed, this leadership role will allow me to learn the responsibilities of the club president. Additionally, as a member, I have had the opportunity to act as a liaison with the Key Club at Gloucester County Institute of Technology. Furthermore, I accepted the responsibility to create and maintain my Kiwanis Club’s Facebook Page. To this end, I have reviewed and posted new content regularly on the club’s Facebook Page. To achieve this goal, I have relied on content from clubs in the Kiwanis Family as well as other neighboring service clubs. Finally, I have helped publicize club events with news releases and public service announcements. All this preceded the honor I received in October 2016, when I became the President-Elect of the club.

Taken directly from the Kiwanis International web site,

Service is at the heart of every Kiwanis club, no matter where in the world it’s located. Members stage nearly 150,000 service projects and raise nearly US$100 million every year for communities, families and projects…

Kiwanis clubs focus on changing the world by serving children, one child and one community at a time. To do this, many clubs also sponsor a Kiwanis family club—K-Kids for primary school children; Builders Clubs for adolescents; Key Clubs for teens; CKI clubs for university students and Aktion Clubs for adults living with disabilities—to reach more people and have a greater service impact on their communities.

Trial Lawyer Michael A. Smolensky, Esquire, on the World Wide Web.

About TED

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.