Letter from the Giving Editor: Columbus Residents Find Many Ways to Pay it Forward

I’m a fan of youth service. One of my first jobs was leading a team of teenagers in New York’s City Volunteer Corps, an early model for AmeriCorps. I later served nine months with City Year Boston and wrote a book about it. Both experiences were among the most memorable of my life. Serving the community full time, I learned, can be the toughest job you’ll ever love—as you’ll understand if you read the profile of Sabrina Moseley.

Participating in such programs is also, like almost any volunteer work, a form of civic education. It brings you face-to-face with the richness and the needs of your community, and you can’t help walking away with an enhanced commitment to stay engaged—just like Moseley, who joined the City Year staff after completing her year in the program, so that she could continue to serve Columbus’ schoolchildren. 

That’s why this issue of Giving is dedicated to the many unique ways Central Ohioans contribute to their communities—like recruiting high school classmates to create a group giving fund. Seeking out new ways to help teens in crisis when a global pandemic is making them hard to reach. Expending company time, talent and dollars to build a home for a family in need. Having honest chats with barbershop clients about getting vaccinated. 

As all these folks will tell you, once you start giving—however you start giving—you’re likely to come back and give more. So if you’ve been wondering how you might contribute to the well-being of our community in the coming year, I hope you’ll find some inspiration in these stories.

This story is from the 2022 issue of Giving, a supplement of Columbus Monthly and Columbus CEO.