The following is a transcription of The Art of Volunteering Episode 14: Troy Childress, High School Guidance Counselor.

Stormy Bell (00:00): Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of The Art of Volunteering. Today, I have a friend that I’ve known [for] about 18, 19 years. As a longtime friend of ours, he mentored my children when they were in youth programming at our church, and he’s just a wonderful resource. This is Troy Childress. He is currently a school counselor at GREEN Upstate High School. That’s in North Carolina?

Troy Childress (00:30): South Carolina.

Stormy Bell (00:31): South Carolina! Oh, I didn’t write that down.

Troy Childress (00:34): That’s okay! It’s one of the Carolinas, you’re close enough.

Stormy Bell (00:36): Oh, close enough! A little bit about Troy. After serving the Air Force, he began his career in youth ministries where he spent over 20 years, both in paid and volunteering. From there, his calling continued into education and he now serves the students and their families as a school counselor. Welcome Troy, and thank you for being my guest.

Troy Childress (00:58): My pleasure. My pleasure.

Stormy Bell (01:01): Today we’re having a discussion about community service and volunteering and why it is so important to high school students as they’re looking for their post-secondary education. Whether it’s university, a two year college, or even trade schools, they look at what are they doing with their time and how are they spending it? There’s a lot of emphasis put on it, and I’ll ask you a little bit about that, but can you just share from your experience, why is this so important?

Troy Childress (01:35): I think from my experience, from the military all the way into youth ministry, even now an education it’s always been an opportunity to give back. From a young airman in the Air Force, we were always encouraged to get in the community. From the Air Force, they use it almost like a recruitment technique or whatever it is where you’re out there in your schools. I was a firefighter, so we had our firefighting programs that we did with in the school. We went around with the students. We talked about fire prevention. So when we’re in uniform and we’re out there meeting and interacting with the community, they saw us in a different light, I guess you could say, than just being a normal military guy. We were able to interact on a personal level. From the military side of things, that was our interaction just to- of giving back. 

In the church world, you said this earlier, churches wouldn’t survive without volunteers. From my experience, I was even volunteering when I was in the military or going back doing church camps. You know, taking a week of vacation just to do a week of camp with students. For me, that part was just to fulfill my passion of working with students. I enjoyed it. I get into paid ministry now, and I even volunteered when I was in youth ministry with FCA. Fellowship for Christian Athletes. Not paid to do that. I did that outside of church world and then, as you know, I found a way to infuse both of ’em at times.

Troy Childress (03:09): I think from volunteering from me as an adult it’s, we have our job. We have our nine to five if you will. Seven to three, or sometimes we work 12 hour shifts. There’s more to life than just the day in, day out grind. If I can give back from a personal perspective and help someone else in need, most of the times we’re volunteering whether it’s at a soup kitchen or whether it’s at a camp or things like that. There are people that need to fill those roles, and a lot of those organizations rely on the volunteering side of things. That’s for me, giving back to the community if you will. There’s the, it’s not selfish, but it’s always unique with how you feel. So you get a sense of gratification and satisfaction of knowing that I helped others. 

There’s a lot of gratitude that people show. I used to work at Soup Kitchen, we would volunteer. We take the kids a lot of times to different places like that, and people just are thankful for people that want to help others. It feels good. It feels good to know that people recognize that and appreciate that. You know, even on the youth side of things when I volunteered as an adult before I became paid staff, those relationships that you build it with students and you get to walk with them in their lives you do that over a course of years. You develop those relationships. I have friends on Facebook that were students that I volunteered with as well as the paid staff kind of thing. You walk with them in life. So there’s a lot of that sense of satisfaction from that personal side of things. 

Troy Childress (04:48): Now as a school counselor and I’m talking to students about their need to get involved, I don’t always spend as much on the college application side of things. I try to hit them on the personal side first. Yeah, we’re doing a college application and they wanna see your hours that you’re volunteering, but I try to reel them in a little bit on that personal piece. Go volunteer at a soup kitchen. That’s the easy one. We use that always as a reference, just because there’s always that. You got your Thanksgiving timeframe, you’ve got your Christmas timeframe, you got some other times of the year where they need volunteers. It’s an easy one to go on a Saturday. 

There are a lot of other avenues that we give them as far as volunteering, Boys & Girls Club, things like that. I try to hit home on that personal level of once they start doing it, they start feeling better about it, they enjoy it, and they get that sense of satisfaction. I feel like if I just dangled a carrot of, ‘hey, you need this for a college application’, a student’s gonna go, they’re gonna do the hour here or there, and they’re gonna check the box and move on not really have the right heart or mindset when they’re volunteering. The win-win for a lot of our students is colleges like to see that. They wanna see that you’re volunteering. It hits on a different level, which I’ll talk about in a second. If I can dangle the carrot of the personal sense of satisfaction and gratification you’re gonna get as well as you’re gonna do that, and you’re gonna meet something that colleges wanna see, it’s a win-win for the students as far as that’s concerned.

Stormy Bell (06:28): Okay. I like that. You’ve answered a lot of my questions in that.

Troy Childress (06:36): Sorry, I went ahead on that one.

Stormy Bell (06:37): No, that’s really good. I love it. Students are in high school so they have school work, they have extracurricular activities, they might have a job. Volunteering plays into that. How do you work with students to balance all that and find a happy medium? Because we don’t want them stressed out and like, I have to do this. I would think from a college point of view, they want a well-rounded student. So how do you guide them? How do you talk to that?

Troy Childress (07:11): Well, I had a freshman come in my office today and it was pretty interesting. She sent me an email saying, ‘hey, can you meet about my credits?’ I pulled her up. I had known her name and face. This is my first year at GREEN so I’m still getting to know my students, but I realized that she’s a freshman and I was intrigued by this conversation. A freshman coming in, already concerned about credits. It was a really good conversation because we got to talk a little bit more about credits. She was asking about colleges and talking about the holistic approach that colleges are looking at while volunteering came up. A lot of our clubs, like National Honors Society, Beta Club, they have volunteering as a requirement for their club. The idea again is, okay, so we’re gonna be a part of a club where our club is service oriented so we need to be serving within the community as part of being a part of this club. 

We got to talk a little bit about that. She’s very smart. Not to say that kids who volunteer have to be smart, but she already got a 4.0 GPA as a freshman. Because she started taking classes at seventh grade. That’s unweighted as opposed to weighted. She’s a really bright student talking about AP classes this year and those kind of things. So she was doing the checkbox. Okay, well I know I need to do this. I know I need to do this. I know I need to do this. Volunteering was one of the things that she added to it. She started talking about getting a job and working 8 to 10 hours a week next year because she’ll be 15. 

Troy Childresss (08:33): As she started listing off these things- in fact when she was talking, she didn’t even breathe. She was kind of like, I’m talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, talking. Then, oh, and then she finally got her breath and I said, ‘that’s a lot, isn’t it?’ She smiled and she says, ‘yeah, it is!’ I said, ‘so let’s take a step back for a second. Stop checking the box and let’s look at things that we’re passionate about because you can become overwhelmed.’ I even asked her, ‘what’s the priority on those, on this schedule?’ She took a second to think about it and she kind of, ‘oh, my grades!’

I said ‘exactly’. I said, ‘so we can put a lot on our plate but we need to make sure that school comes first and we find a way to balance all that.’ I know we put so much pressure, or students, or someone in the mix is putting pressure on students to stack the box on all the things that they’re doing. Take all the APs you can take, take all the honors classes you can take, get a part-time job, play sports, be involved in extracurricular activities, [and] volunteer. Oh maybe you can help out around the neighborhood! We just start checking all these things and students become overwhelmed. I have them step back and look at, so what are we passionate about?

Troy Childress (09:58): Don’t do things just to check the box and say well, I was a part of this club or I did that. Granted here again, we’re looking at the holistic side of things, but if a college, and this is just from my interaction with admissions reps and those kind of things. If you’re involved with one or two clubs, you have extracurricular activities and you’re volunteering on this and they all kind of fit your passion and what your, your interest is, that’s far more impactful in your college application than having 20,000 things that you’re doing and your list is so long, but it’s an hour here, 30 minutes there. As opposed to, I volunteer at Boys & Girls Club because I wanna be a teacher and I’m passionate about working with students. So I spend five hours a week volunteering at the Boys & Girls Club. 

Just having them prioritize those things so that they don’t become overwhelmed. Because it’s very easy to do that. There’s some students who need to work and I’ve had a lot of reps talk about [how] they can’t always get the volunteer hours in because they need to work and they understand that part of it, and that’s a priority as well. But still trying to find a way to get involved and interact. If they can only volunteer one hour a week, one hour every two weeks, but it’s intentional in what they’re doing, that stands out far more than anything else. That’s based off of just the conversations we’ve had with reps and students and just making sure that they understand the why in what they’re doing.

Stormy Bell (11:31): I like that. I wish I had that guidance when I was in school.

Troy Childress (11:36): You and me both. You and me both.

Stormy Bell (11:40): Do you see the students who decide to be with the Boys and Girls Club, because they wanna be a teacher and they’re aligning their time so everything’s aligning up with their passions and their direction in life. Do you see the benefits of that beyond high school, beyond college? Do you think they take something from that, that carries with them? That spirit of giving back, like continuing that? Do you see that?

Troy Childress (12:08): I do, and I’ll use myself as an example. In high school we had an opportunity with church camp. As a high school student, I could go back and volunteer for the younger age groups at camp, or even in church you could volunteer in children’s church or those kind of things. Even at Pascack Bible Church (PBC), we had a lot of our students who went to camp as a volunteer of the weeks that they had younger kids. That’s what started my whole journey into what I’m doing now as far as working with students. I didn’t realize that. At 16 years old, for me, it was a fun week at camp working with students. I enjoyed it. I had friends that went to camp with me. It was fun to me and I enjoyed that whole time that I was doing that.

I did it at, you know, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21. I’m still in the military going back and here I am, you know, three or four years later now stepping into a paid role as a youth pastor because of that journey that I took as a teenager working with students. For a lot of kids who don’t know what they wanna do, they don’t, I mean, and at 16, 17, 18, at 25 a lot of people still don’t know what they want to do so if they’re volunteering it gives them that touch point of is this something I’m passionate about or not? Many people tend to move forward with that and do it for years to come because they enjoy it. That doesn’t mean that if someone volunteers with the Boys and Girls Club that they’re gonna work with children the rest of their life, but they might continue as an adult volunteering because of that passion and what they’ve enjoyed doing and that drives their giving side of things, if you will.

Stormy Bell (14:00): Ok. Just speaking, like not knowing what they wanna do and volunteering for that, that is one one thing they recommend for volunteers, even someone wanting to change jobs later on in life or if some of our young professionals want to build their resume. They will look for volunteer opportunities in like, they might be in finance, but they need to have fundraising experience. The actual earning of it. They volunteer so they gain that real world experience that helps them for that next step in their career whatever that is. I hear people who may have lost their job during the pandemic. They found ways to volunteer to keep their skills up, to give them purpose. There’s so many things that come out of it. To instill that at a high school or even middle high age, it’s so important. If you actually have even younger than that, families who you use the example of the soup kitchen, they go as a family. They’re learning at a very young age that we give back. We do this just because that’s who we are. It’s such an example for the future. 

I do see what you were saying about aligning in their passions that colleges want- They’re looking at that volunteering possibly from a point of what value is this student? What are they gonna bring to the life of the campus? How do they look at the world? How do they get involved? We don’t necessarily want someone who’s so worn out because they’ve done everything. We’d rather have someone a little more focused, a little more open to even diversity, trying different things. If you volunteered with the Paralympics or something like that where you’ve opened yourself up to something beyond what you might see at home or even in your school.

Troy Childress (16:08): Right, right. So I’ll even use your two boys as an example. I mean, they’re both in careers now that they were volunteering in some of those aspects in high school. I mean I know Zander was helping out in youth ministry with a lot of our media stuff and look at what they’re doing. Those doors open up far beyond where we think they’re gonna open up as far as that’s concerned, which is really neat to see.

Stormy Bell (16:37): Absolutely. Absolutely. Alright, let me ask you hopefully an easy question. Can you share a story of an impactful volunteer experience? Something maybe you had as a volunteer or something you witnessed from one of your students during their experience? Has anything come to mind?

Troy Childress (17:01): Yes. We took a group to Cincinnati many years ago from New Jersey. It was a mix of a conference as well as a mission trip, if you will. We were going within the local community and doing different things. Part of it was the Boys & Girls Club. We were there hanging out with kids and doing a bible study with them and just spending time with them. Playing games and those kind of things. We had I think three or four groups. We had different tasks that we did throughout the week. The students would either be at the Boys & Girls Club or they would be doing some work. Doing some construction stuff or doing some food stuff at the food pantry so they kind of rotated around.

You would think that just the volunteering with the kids would be the most impactful one. Some of the students surprised me. ‘Man, I had fun working with my hands and getting dirty and building the fence and doing those kind of things’. I think it was the food bank that we were working at. From that side of it, the kids talked about giving bags of food to people who were in need. At the end of that week, we talk about how the week was, and I get the students to kind of share back. There was not one student that week that didn’t have anything impactful to say.

Troy Childress (18:41): I remember this trip very, very distinctly because it was my first trip after Russell was born so I was not in the right, right state of mind. In fact, I was kind of a little disconnected. We get to the end of the week and everybody’s teary eyed, everybody, you know is just, they were touched by what we did that week. Those students all stepped out of their comfort zone and learned how important it’s to step out of the normal life that we live and give back a little bit. So that’s one of the ones, I see pictures sometimes on Facebook. It just kind of sparks a little piece of my heart of reminding me of that trip, which is really cool.

Stormy Bell (19:27): That’s awesome. Was that the trip that had potatoes? Something they had to- was there a trip that they pick potatoes or sorted potatoes or something? Was that that one?

Troy Childress (19:37): Maybe.

Stormy Bell (19:38): Maybe? I heard stories about something like that. I could be on the wrong trip.

Troy Childress (19:43): No I think that was it.

Stormy Bell (19:47): Very good. Alright. I have another question for you. Can you share a blooper, something that didn’t go right, but either you learned from it or the student learned from it? Just from a volunteer experience, like, just anything.

Troy Childress (20:04): So I’m gonna use myself as an example on this one. The other one was about the kids. This one was about me. Moved down to South Carolina and years in youth ministry I decide okay, I’m gonna jump back in and volunteer at a church. We go on a weekend retreat and here I am, Mr. Youth Pastor, you know, I got years of experience and I’m great and I know what I’m doing. It was the most humbling experience for myself where I was the outcast. Adults didn’t speak to me, students didn’t speak to me. I mean, I was the new guy. It was disheartening at times, but very discouraging as well. I think for me it was a huge learning experience. In fact, I called up an old buddy of mine from PBC, I’m not gonna name his name, but just to say, ‘hey, was I ever like this?’ You know, just cause I’ve always been intentional, especially with volunteers about making sure they get engaged and here I am the first time in a while where I’m the volunteer in youth ministry as opposed to the youth pastor.

There was no engagement, there was no interaction, there was no trying to help out as far as being the new guy. For me, while on one hand it was a blow to my ego of like, oh my gosh I’m not cool anymore. I mean, I kind of thinking about like, gosh, I’m the old guy or whatever. I mean, I wasn’t the oldest guy there, but that’s fine. I’m not bitter about that, I promise you. I think it was the learning experience for me, of just reminding me of how intentional we need to be. If I’m in a role where I have volunteers in or new people coming in or those kind of things, a reminder of make sure they’re engaged. Make sure if you’re the leader of leading this, whatever the group is or whatever is happening, make sure that everybody feels accepted, feels like they’re part of that group.

Troy Childress (22:21): It took a couple of nights of me nurturing my ego to kind of step back and learn from that experience. There are gonna be times where, and even now, times where I’m bringing people into the fold of, of doing different events. Just making sure that everybody, everybody feels wanted, feels like they’re needed and they’re a part of the group. Everybody has a role. Everybody has a role within whatever we’re doing in the volunteer side of things or, you know, in the organization. Just making sure that everybody feels heard and that they’re a part of it. That was a big learning curve for me but I’m better now because of it, because I think I have a newer sense of understanding of what it’s like to be on the other side.

Stormy Bell (23:10): Thank you for sharing that. That’s very personal. I appreciate that.

Troy Childress (23:14): It’s tough.

Stormy Bell (23:16): I know my listeners are gonna appreciate that too, because sometimes we learn more from our bloopers than we do when things go right.

Troy Childress (23:25): I appreciate the blooper side of things. Because sometimes we say failures and people they lock into that negative mindset but I’ve learned more from the mistakes I’ve made or the times that things didn’t go the way that I thought they were gonna go. This was one of those big examples of, it didn’t go the way I thought it was gonna go and I came back I think more impactful for me on that side of it than had it gone where I was a new guy and everybody loved me. I don’t think I would’ve learned as much.

Stormy Bell (23:56): I gotcha. Well, again thank you for sharing that. Okay here’s the part of the interview where I invite you to love on your school GREEN Upstate or your volunteering at your church, or just your students and their volunteer path. Just love on them.

Troy Childress (24:19): Cool. GREEN Upstate is a charter school in Mauldin, at Simpsonville Mauldin area. Our area code is Simpsonville but we live in Mauldin, which is the upstate of South Carolina. The Greenville area for those that aren’t familiar with South Carolina, but it’s the upstate side of things. The school had a middle school and a high school and they were combined together in the same building and we split off. So we are a new school in the sense of we’re our own school now. We’ve added more students in than we had before. We’re very small, just under 260 students. Which is new for me because the former school I worked at my caseload was 330 as a school counselor. Now the entire school is lower than my caseload before. It’s a small school.

Stepping into this school, it’s been some growing pains, but at the same time it’s really cool to see our students come together. I’m the new counselor. I have seniors that were working through transcripts and college applications and those kind of things. The majority of the students have been very receptive. There’s some cool energy from the school about the excitement of where we’re going. I’m excited about a lot of new things.

Troy Childress (25:56): From the school side of things, I think our journey is just beginning, but the future is very bright on that end of it. We’ve got some amazing teachers, staff members that are excited about something new. You know, you jump on something new, the energy could be one way or the other. It could just be defeated. But, when you’re on something new and everybody’s excited from the staff down I think that just kind of encourages the entire organization as a whole. I’m really pumped about that. I’ve got 35 seniors this year. I have 55 juniors, so our classes are kind of building from there. We’re 130 freshmen, I think right around there. 125. The future is headed in the right direction so I’m excited about that. I think everybody else is excited. I’m gonna say excited about three or four more times, and maybe I’ll get the point across with that.

Stormy Bell (26:55): Okay. That’s fine. Wonderful. Alright. Thank you so much for coming on today. I appreciate your wisdom. I love the perspective, especially about the students needing to find out what aligns with their passions and their goals as opposed to just doing everything. That’s my takeaway from this is just to be mindful of it. For the parents listening, don’t push your kids into everything. Help them choose.

Troy Childress (27:24): Absolutely.

Stormy Bell (27:25): Choose what matters most to them. Alright, Troy thank you. Maybe there’ll be another time. I’ll have you on talk about something else

Troy Childress (27:34): Anytime you want, I’m happy. Yes thank you Stormy.

Stormy Bell (27:35): Alright. Alright. Thank you to all my listeners. We’ll be back with another episode. Thank you.

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The following is a transcription of The Art of Volunteering Episode 13: Sue Griffin, Polio New Zealand.

Stormy Bell (00:00): Welcome back to another episode of The Art of Volunteering. Today we’re going completely around the world. We’re gonna go to New Zealand. My new friend, Sue Griffin is gonna be talking about how she volunteers and how she wants to turn the world purple on October 24th. Sue, welcome.

Sue Griffin (00:21): Kia ora.

Stormy Bell (00:24): Very cool. We have another new friend to me, Sue Devoli, and she said when we got talking to say purple gin and that just opened up everything when she said that.

Sue Griffin (00:41): Yes. Purple gin. Purple gin is my project for the year for World Polio Day which is October 24th.

Stormy Bell (00:55): What do you do with purple gin? You want everyone to drink gin that’s purple?

Sue Griffin (01:00): Well, that’d be good. No, the idea is the whole world remembers polio on October 24th every year. Cities all around the world, light up either an iconic structure of a sculpture or a building in purple. Buildings like the Burj Khalifa, The White House and Sydney Opera House. Unfortunately Aotearoa, or New Zealand, has been rather slack in doing this. We’re only a small country. We’ve only got 5 million people, which we only reached recently, but we’ve still not been very good at it. My job as a board member in Polio New Zealand is to correct that. Last year I managed to get 10 cities in New Zealand to light up something purple. It was either bridges or a nice building, something that was important to that city.

That worked really well except I realized that when people see buildings lit in a particular color, they don’t always realize the significance of it. They just think, oh, that’s a nice color this week. This year I want to make sure that people know what purple signifies. What it signifies is the fact that those of us that survived polio feel quite strongly that we need to make sure it never comes back. It’s not a poor me sort of day. It’s to remind the world that we have to keep it at bay. So this year I’m trying to find ways to lead up to October 24th, making sure that people understand why it’s purple. Purple signifies polio around the world because the volunteers and the polio vaccinators that do such wonderful work in third world countries around the world, they just try to vaccinate every child.

Sue Griffin (03:17): When they have given one child [the liquid drops], they put their little pinky finger on an ink pad and the pinky gets purple. That’s how purple has come to signify polio. In my efforts to try and find a way to bring it to the attention of perhaps younger generations, because you know I’m well in my seventies and I’m one of the younger ones. I want to make sure that people don’t forget that polio caused such a problem similar to COVID. The World Health Organization has said that if we don’t keep it at bay within 10 years, we’ll be back at 300,000 cases a year. In fact Papua New Guinea, which is only a plane right away from us, it’s only about maybe three hours from New Zealand by plane.

They had an outbreak a couple of years ago and it’s that close. So I’m trying to bring it to the younger ones. I thought, what can I do to make the younger ones feel a bit more involved? I thought, well, everybody likes to drink a bit. Most people do. In England a couple years ago came up. I have to say, it’s not my idea. England a few years ago, they created a purple gin. I went to one of the local wine and spirit store, and I said to him, ‘look, if I can persuade some of the many distilleries in New Zealand to create a purple gin’, because I think gin’s quite an easy one to color. It’s one that quite a lot of people probably drink. So I said, ‘if I can persuade some distilleries to create a purple gin, would you have a promotional period, like a week or a month where you have tastings and maybe experts run a little class on how to select good gin and all this sort of thing.’

Sue Griffin (05:20): They were very supportive. I written to at least 20 of the more than 100 gin distilleries in New Zealand, I’m ashamed to say. I have got a very positive response and some of them agreed that they will be creating a purple gin. They say, it’s not a problem and some of them are quite supportive and some of them even want to donate a little bit per bottle to Polio New Zealand.

Stormy Bell (05:53): That’s awesome.

Sue Griffin (05:55): I now have sort of been a victim of my own success with this because I didn’t really envision it being quite so successful. Now I’ve got to create tasting events and media tie ups and things like that. I’ll probably be creating some lunches, making people wear a purple hat or something like that. The wine shops doing these wine tastings, et cetera. So yeah, that’s the story of the purple gin.

Stormy Bell (06:26): That’s incredible. I love that journey. Now you had mentioned your survivor of polio.

Sue Griffin (06:33): Yes, I had polio in 1949 before most of the people that are in New Zealand anyway, because we have had a very good health system. Most of us contracted poly before vaccines were available. Vaccines only became created for polio in 1956. 55, 56. Most of us are fairly old and everyone’s affected differently, but most of my life was pretty reasonable actually. I had a bit of pain and lumped and couldn’t do some things, but life was normal. I got married, I had children, I became a nurse, and traveled around. They discovered however that about up to 40 years after you recovered it sort of, they used the word comes back to kick you in the butt, but it doesn’t really come back.

When you first recovered, your body created a lot of defense mechanisms. Ways for the paralyzed muscles to be stronger and get around things. Lots of different neurons that have sort of split themselves in half to cope where the other ones were destroyed. 40 years later, it’s not that it comes back, but these adaptions have worn away and can’t survive anymore. Some of us have ended back in braces, on calipers and I, myself am quite lucky in that I don’t, but I do have to use a wheelchair when I’m outside because I can’t stand up for very long. Yeah, it’s a bit of a thing. The problem, of course, in New Zealand, we’re a very sort of outdoorsy, strong people.

Sue Griffin (08:45): While we have an excellent health system, if you have an accident, even if you’re a foreigner visiting New Zealand, you’ve got free healthcare. If you fall over and break a hip or whatever, but if you dare to be sick because of a disease, then you don’t get quite the same benefits. Because of that, Polio New Zealand has come into existence and we act as a support group for each other. We raise funds. We have a very philanthropic family that assists us sometimes with funding.

Stormy Bell (09:21): Is that the Duncan family? I had read about them on your website.

Sue Griffin (09:27): Yes. Wonderful family, wonderful family. There they’re farmers in the King Country. Years ago, many years ago, 50 years ago, at least they split part of their farm off and used whatever profits came from that part, they put into a fund for polio. This was done way back in the forties and fifties when polio was around because one of the farm workers’ sons had polio, and they became very interested. They’ve been a tremendous help to us as polio survivors. They have now actually begun a foundation, a Duncan foundation, which focuses on other neuromuscular conditions which is what polio is. Without going on for hours, I can tell you how it works. A lot of people get polio and never get paralyzed and that’s just in the gut. If it continues on into the bloodstream, goes through the spinal canal to the brain is when you get the paralysis. It’s considered a neuromuscular disease as is multiple sclerosis and things like that.

Stormy Bell (10:44): Right. My uncle was in his eighties when he passed, he had polio and it took out his arm. He had very little use of his arm.

Sue Griffin (10:55): Yeah.

Stormy Bell (10:58): Interesting. Let’s see, you covered a lot of my questions.

Sue Griffin (11:04): Sorry I didn’t know much to tell you.

Stormy Bell (11:07): No, that’s awesome! I love it when you answer questions I haven’t asked. So you are a polio survivor. How did you get involved with Polio New Zealand? Have you always been involved with it or is this something you did after you retired? How did you get involved?

Sue Griffin (11:24): No, it was when polio came back and started to affect me. I was still living in Philadelphia at that time and nobody including the medical professionals had any idea what the problem was. I was working in emergency room trauma centers and I just had a lot, my pain was coming back to my legs like it had when I was younger and I couldn’t really do things. I was extremely tired. I’ve had polio in one arm and one leg, so my arm kept jumping and I went to a doctor and fortunately went to a very old doctor who was familiar with polio and he helped me.

There is a man in [the] USA. I think he lives in Trenton. Dr. Richard Bruno, who himself had polio, has been a huge research resource for polio and has written a very excellent book, which is very helpful. At the time I was working in the states as a nurse and it got to the point I couldn’t work anymore. I just couldn’t cope with the physical work. It’s quite physical in specialty areas. I had three sons, which I had with me in the states and while they were older, they had become immovable in that they had American girlfriends, went to university, and married American girls. I had choices to make. Did I go home where I could get taken care of and leave my children there or what?

Sue Griffin (13:33): I did have to come back to New Zealand. I couldn’t survive in the American, no offense, but in the American health system, I wouldn’t have survived. I came home to New Zealand where we have free healthcare. Fortunately two of my children followed me so partial success. When I got back here, I was still able to do things. I just wasn’t able to do the nursing. I did do some other things, but eventually I had to stop everything and I searched for some support and some answers and came across the Polio New Zealand association. I’ve been involved with them, I suppose for a good 15, 16 years and am now a board member and as I said, responsible for the purples.

Stormy Bell (14:30): Purples, excellent. How many people volunteer with Polio New Zealand? Just the board or do you have other roles that are volunteer?

Sue Griffin (14:41): Well, it’s listed as a charitable organization, which of course gives you benefits, not paying tax and all that sort of thing. Everyone on the board is a volunteer. Everybody in Polio New Zealand is a volunteer. We are a sort of self supporting group. There’s about 600 members. Although not everybody is actively doing anything, if anyone’s asked to do anything, there is no benefits or anything of doing it. So it’s just volunteer.

Stormy Bell (15:16): Okay. They volunteer because it’s personal to them and they want to see it continue?

Sue Griffin (15:31): Yes because one of the things is that, without crying poor me, it’s quite difficult. People today don’t know what it is and they’re not familiar with it. We have quite a lot of things like idiosyncrasies in the way we move things that other people might perceive as perhaps being rude. It’s difficult to stand up. Everyone else stands up to give a toast to somebody perhaps, and you can’t stand up. It’s difficult. You can’t, you know, and you have to explain why you walk the way you do. It’s difficult. One of the benefits of being in Polio New Zealand is when we get together, which in regions, we get together quite regularly for coffees or lunches. It’s almost like we have another family. It’s like a polio family we call it. It’s almost like a relief to get together with other people who have the same issues.

You don’t have to explain yourself. It’s quite a unique feeling really. I think everybody that’s in Polio New Zealand is invested in maintaining it as a viable group, which is always a bit of a concern because apart from refugees coming in in particular from the Malaysian and Asian countries, we haven’t had polio in New Zealand since 19- I think we had four cases in 1963, but apart from that, we haven’t had cases in New Zealand since 1956. We do have refugees. We do take quite a few refugees. At the moment we are all helping the Cambodian woman who has been here, who had polio in Cambodia and has got major problems. It’s not entirely gone in our memories here, but you know, COVID has caused… I just keep saying to people, do you mean COVID sort of has made people or it should make people remember how fragile we are as human beings. Unfortunately there’s a small percentage perhaps of non-believers, you know, anti-vaxers and it’s a concern that one day it will come back. Because if you don’t maintain [a] saturation rate of at least 92%, I think it is, it stands a chance of getting back in.

Stormy Bell (18:24): Like you had said, it is kind of scary because you can have it and have no symptoms initially. Right?

Sue Griffin (18:32): Well, correct.

Stormy Bell (18:35): But.

Sue Griffin (18:36): Correct. One of the things that is done in a proactive manner is waste waters, probably most places in the world. I know we do here. Waste waters are tested regularly for various diseases, one of which is polio. I think about three years ago, they found the polio virus present in the waste water in Melbourne. I’ll try and just quickly explain how that happens when people can get polio, it actually goes into their gut. If it sits in their gut, they don’t have any symptoms. They might feel like a flu. In fact, some people used to call it polio flu. You might feel those flu-like symptoms, but then it passes and that virus will be discreted with the feces so it can end up in the waste water.

It’s when it goes past there, as I said before into the blood system, that it becomes the big issue. I don’t think they realize particularly why that the difference is why some people, it just sits in the gut and others and progress. I guess it’s individual immunity levels and predilections to various types of bacteria. This is why they concentrate the third world vaccination rates because in countries where there’s poor sanitation and maybe open sewage, this of course is where if everybody’s not vaccinated, then one person can pick it up and so it’ll start off again.

Stormy Bell (20:29): And then it starts. Yeah. Wow.

Sue Griffin (20:33): I dunno if that answers your question or not.

Stormy Bell (20:35): It does! I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. I’m gonna invite you to love on Polio New Zealand, what you love about it. Then if people want to get involved in World Polio Day and wearing purple, where would they go to learn more about it. Just love on love on it.

Sue Griffin (21:06): Everywhere in the world, there’s usually a polio association. [The] United States has one and they have quite a lot, cause you know, the March of Dimes of course was for polio. Every year they used to have the March of Dimes fundraising thing that was creative. That March of Dimes was for polio. If you remember the original poster, it had a little boy wearing a couple of wearing calipers. Canada has a big one. I think Canada has one cause one of the big issues with people that have recovered from polio, if they were in an iron lung, which a lot were then, you’ve got things like respiratory problems, swallowing problems, sleep problems. Canada has a big respiratory section for people that have survived, been in the iron lungs.

England has a big one, Ireland. I’m not sure about most of the European countries, but I’m pretty sure they do. You can just go on to Google and just Google polio associations in your region and I’m sure you’ll come up with web pages. A really good one is Australia. Australia has a very structured polio group. I mean they’re a large country and not like poor little New Zealand. We are very small and they have an excellent website. If you went into Polio Australia, you’ll get all sorts of information. Also United Kingdom is really good. In fact, they’re the ones that came out with a purple- well the polio association. I don’t know if they came up with a purple gin. I was in England a few years ago and I was pretty amused by the gin distilleries everywhere!

Sue Griffin (23:09): I did a tour with some of my sisters and there was like Scotland and Shetland Islands. There was gin everywhere. It was amazing. I even had a bottle of gin, it was made from seaweed and it was beautiful. They have rhubarb gin and rhubarb and ginger and all sorts. As I said, I was a bit embarrassed at New Zealand. I mean, we are a small group of islands but we have over a hundred gin distilleries. I don’t know how that measures out per person. It’s only 5 million people. Just say it’s not a very good advertisement, is it for New Zealand, but we are very happy about it. One of the big issues that we’ve had as polios is struggling to have medical providers involved in learning about polio. Any doctor who’s in practice now has never seen polio unless they’ve come from Pakistan or India or somewhere like that.

They don’t know what to do most of the time. They sort of just push us. As we are old, they don’t tend to take you seriously. I think they just think they can. If you present with a painful leg, yes, they can see that it’s got atrophy and it’s weaker and that, but they can only think to fix it with the way they would fix any leg that was weaker and that they don’t consider the polio aspects. We’ve put a lot of work into care plans into the medical, on their computers. There’s quite a bit of difference between America and New Zealand healthcare and I’m sure it’s probably more technical now, but when I lived there, the doctors pretty much did their notes handwriting. [In] New Zealand, doctors put everything straight into a computer and they have clinical pathways in these applications, which help them check and make sure they haven’t missed anything essentially. We’ve worked quite hard to create a clinical pathway for polio, post polio syndrome as they call it and things like that. So we’ve done quite a bit.

Stormy Bell (25:57): Okay. Very cool. Well, I have enjoyed our conversation. I wanna hear how the gin goes this October and have you back on for a little brief update and if you were able to get everyone in New Zealand to drink purple gin.

Sue Griffin (26:17): Yeah, I’m trying! I’ll do my share.

Stormy Bell (26:22): You’ll do your share. Well thank you, Sue. I appreciate your time today.

Sue Griffin (26:29): No problem.

Stormy Bell (26:30): Thank you for tuning into The Art of Volunteering. Have a great day.

Show Notes & Links
Polio New Zealand – www.polio.org.nz

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