Mission Organization: When Helping Hands Meet Helping Hearts
Professional Organizers in North Carolina donate time and talent for cancer support center
(PRWEB) January 19, 2005
It won’t be quite as dramatic as TV shows like Mission: Organization, Clean Sweep, or Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, but everyone at Cornucopia House Cancer Support Center (cornucopiahouse. org) is excited nonetheless. The National Association of Professional Organizers North Carolina Chapter (NAPO-NC) (naponc. org) chose Cornucopia House as the beneficiary of their “Get Organized” service project. It’s all part of the national association’s January G(et) O(organized) Month. In cities and towns around the U. S., many of the 2800 NAPO National (napo. net) members are helping a variety of non-profits get organized into more effective and comfortable spaces during GO Month. The Chapel Hill-based Cornucopia House provides support, programs, and services for anyone whose life has been touched by cancer.
NAPO-NC members, working in seven teams, are organizing the Cornucopia House living room and resource center, the corner room where support groups meet, and the gathering room where educational forums and expressive arts programming takes place, as well as the kitchen and storage areas and offices of the executive director and other staff. The professional organizers are sorting, re-grouping, recycling, removing, and then adding systems to help Cornucopia House staff and volunteers carry out their mission more effectively.
“We are thrilled,” says Cornucopia House executive director Becky Carver, “and it’s obvious we’re presenting NAPO-NC with quite a challenge. We’re serving more participants than ever, adding programming, increasing the inventory of supplies and materials, and expanding the resource library. Our modest budget simply hasn’t permitted investment in some of the things most people take for granted in their offices and homes that make it easy to find or store or display essentials.”
NAPO-NC vice president Geralin Thomas says her chapter is eager to demonstrate to everyone associated with Cornucopia House that getting organized can make a positive impact on their day-to-day operations. “We spent several hours at Cornucopia House in December talking to the staff about what they do, evaluating current use of space, measuring, and planning. Our goal is to enhance the safe, serene, comfortable environment experienced by everyone who enters the front door because their lives are changed in some way by a cancer diagnosis or experience.”
According to Thomas, “The primary goal of every professional organizer when we work with clients in their home or office is to define spaces by their function and create a clutter-free environment where most-used things are within reach. This is the key to simplifying life and work and being more effective at whatever we do.”
Right now, says Carver, supplies and materials at Cornucopia House are stored in sometimes-unusual places. “I think the biggest laugh of the evaluation day with NAPO-NC came when they noticed the rolls of toilet paper prominently displayed on the shelves in the financial assistant’s office.”
Thomas agrees that the North Carolina chapter’s organizing project at Cornucopia House is going to be a challenge, “but as with every home and office, there are easy and inexpensive solutions. In some cases, we simply re-purpose or re-arrange existing shelves or cabinets or furniture. Sometimes we add a sorting system as ordinary as stacking files.”
Professional organizers are not decorators, Thomas points out, but they do keep aesthetics in mind. “While we certainly organize around function, the systems we design must first of all fit the individual user or organization. When one of us is organizing a little girl’s bedroom, we don’t use the same types of systems or style as when we organize an adult’s home office or kitchen. The individual user must feel good and productive in the environment we help create or we haven’t done our job.”
Cancer patients, their families and friends, and professional caregivers especially appreciate the non-medical environment at Cornucopia House, says Carver. “They tell us it is a welcome respite from doctor’s offices, labs, and hospitals that are such a big part of their lives. Preserving that atmosphere during our organizing process is vital.”
Thomas cautions that the service project at Cornucopia House won’t be like the one-day or one-week miracles depicted on the popular TV programs. “We simply don’t have the financial resources or vast number of people that the shows have. But by the end of January, we will have made a substantial difference that we hope others will build on when we leave.”
For more information:
Www. naponc. org.
Www. cornucopiahouse. org
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