Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Putting the "Grand" in Grand Bethel

I got a lot few questions about Job's Daughters and Grand Bethel and what all this crazy stuff is about.

So before I get into the highlights from my surprisingly AWESOME weekend, I thought I'd just give a little summary of what the heck I was doing in Visalia in the first place.

Job's Daughters (as in the Book of Job, not your job where you go everyday) is a sorority-type organization for girls age 10-20. They learn leadership skills, budgeting, scheduling, and a whole host of other practical skills, while also serving the community and having a whole lot of fun. We have business meetings twice a month. The girls run the show. They learn Parliamentary Procedure for running the meeting, one of them takes the minutes, they work on committees and give reports and they plan their own activities. (In theory. In reality, I'm doing a lot of that right now, but it's shifting as the girls get a little more experience.)

Grand Bethel is the annual statewide convention for all of the Job's Daughters in the State of California. Other jurisdictions have their own Grand Bethels or rallies or whatever they choose to call them. Job's Daughters is an international organization, with bethels (local chapters) in 32 States and 5 countries. For more information on the order, go here.

Anywho, Grand Bethel. Fifteen hundred or so teenage girls and another 4-500 chaperones and other adult volunteers converge annually on the sleepy town of Visalia, CA. We stay in hotels and gather in the convention center for meetings and competitions, starting on Thursday and ending with a big Installation and Dance on Saturday night.

Thursday and Saturday's events are both formal, while Friday is a little more casual and fun. Each bethel wears look-alike outfits Friday. Some wear the exact same outfit, while others pick out fabric and tell their girls to make whatever dress they feel like out of it. (Yup, we have to wear dresses. The whole time.)

This is what my girls wanted to wear:

Tutus. Like punk-style tutus. I told them I'd wear a purple skirt but that there wasn't enough tule in the world to cover my posterior. And even if there was, they sure wouldn't want to see that.

But they got tons of compliments on them and I have to admit that my girls looked adorable. I'd been more than a little apprehensive about it. But they rocked the tutus and I was just glad they didn't complain about them five minutes into the day.

Here are some of the highlights of the weekend:
  • Stopping for lunch at a rest stop and no one complaining about the type of lunch meat I'd brought.
  • Getting to the hotel and having our rooms actually be ready.
  • Finding out that our registration was never received and having to hold up the registration line while we checked in eleven people.
  • Having eleven people in our group. It's been a LONG time since that's happened!
  • A special guest showing up from a nearby town and having her hang out with us the rest of the weekend. She's a sweetie and my girls love her.
  • An arch-nemesis stopping me and saying how great it was to see me with so many girls this year. (We've had 2 or 3 every year for the last 5.)
  • Telling my girls to be ready at 7:10am on Saturday morning to help out with a competition...only to have them show up at 6:30am, ready to go.
  • Realizing at that moment that they respect me and listen to what I say.
  • Listening to them talk about all the competitions they want to try next year.
  • Letting the girls hang out in my hotel room all afternoon when I just wanted to take a nap.
  • My girls wanting to hang out in my hotel room all afternoon instead of getting away from the chaperones for a few hours of free time.
  • Watching them attempt to do the dance to "Thriller" that night during the formal Dance.
  • And watching them scatter when we chaperones broke out and started kicking their butts at it.
  • Dealing with a rampaging smoke alarm in the middle of the night.
  • Yelling at a girl from another bethel to stop calling other rooms at 1 in the freakin' morning!
  • Everyone still on speaking terms and getting along on the ride home.
  • The girl that doesn't-want-to-be-there-and-is-only-doing-this-because-her-aunt-is-making-her throwing her arms around me when I dropped her off at home, thanking me for taking her, and telling me that she really had a lot of fun.
There are no paychecks for the adults in Job's Daughters. We're all volunteers. Some of us put in more effort than others, but the only reward we get is from seeing those girls succeed and be happy and develop confidence. I love them and I love this organization. I've been involved in it since I was 5. I used to count down the years until I could be initiated. And when I reached age 20 and had to become a Majority Member, it seemed like it came all too soon. But now I get to be on the other side of it. To give back the way my mom and countless others gave to me when I needed it. I love these girls and I would do anything for them. In this time when I'm dealing with some very hard things and my personal life hasn't been so happy, I have a place where I am wanted and respected and maybe even admired.

And that's all the paycheck I need.

(From this. I still need to get paid from my job.)
Posted by Karen Peterson
This post is: 
at 8:27 PM
Labels: ,

11 comments:

  1. Karen, this sounds wonderful! What a great program to volunteer. Sounds like a fun time. The tutus are adorable!

    ReplyDelete

  2. I'm with Kristina P. on this one, Karen. Wow! Absolutely fantastic program that clearly makes you super happy.

    Plus, any activity that you value way more than sleep is pretty cool!! :)

    -Francesca

    ReplyDelete

  3. Wow... this sounds like a fabulous program!!

    ReplyDelete

  4. Great program!

    I couldn't be a kid nowadays...I wouldn't have gone for the tutu back in the day! :-)

    ReplyDelete

  5. You're an inspiration! How cool that you volunteer so much of your time. It really does sound like a great program, and your girls sound like that rare breed of not-obnoxious teenager. Good Job!

    And the tutus really are too cool.

    ReplyDelete

  6. My mom used to be in Job's Daughters! I always wondered why she didn't encourage me to join. Oh well. Job's daughters also used to have that awesome baked potato stand at Oktoberfest. So they're aces in my book. And it's awesome that you volunteer your time. The community and the world need more people like that!

    ReplyDelete

  7. Kristina: I can't tell you how much it helped me as a kid. I'm glad to be part of it. And they are adorable, aren't they??

    Francesca: I'll agree with that! If I'm willing to give up sleep time, those kids must be pretty fantastic!

    Shop Girl: It sure is. It was through Job's Daughters that I took my first trip to Canada!

    Kathie: There was no WAY they were getting me in one of those things!

    Kris: Oh, they can definitely be obnoxious! But they're good kids and I really do adore them. They're like my adopted kids.

    Nikol: WHY?? She should have encouraged you to join! Maybe we could have met years ago! :-)

    ReplyDelete

  8. Oh Ms. Karen. What a beautiful time you had. You are the best.

    ReplyDelete

  9. Glad it all turned out fantastic. Your last parragraph was wonderful, Karen.


    I noticed the "interesting" face you drew on the lady in the back of the pic. Ha!

    ReplyDelete

  10. Lyn: Oh, I'm really not! But thank you!

    Akilah: Thank you so much. And yeah, you should have seen the real expression on her face!

    ReplyDelete

  11. Hey there! I loved the tutus! I know I told one of your ladies at some point on friday. I was at Grand Bethel with Bethel 43, which I am just getting to know. I'm newly involved on the grown-up side of things, and loving it so far.

    best, Michelle

    ReplyDelete

"You know what they say. If you don't have anything nice to say about anybody, come sit by me."

~Clairee Belcher, Steel Magnolias

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)