Welcome to the Ascend Blog

I have to say it. The first blog post is a little intimidating--it's supposed to set the tone for a whole new blog. There's a lot of pressure to be witty, informative, nice and charming. The good news is I'm pretty sure that I am all of those things. If I don't seem it, let's just chalk it up to nerves and pressure
I once saw a t-shirt that said, "Blogs: never has so much been written by so many and read by so few." I thought that was funny (which, I believe shows that I have a sense of humor) and somewhat true. That being said, I wish this blog to be something more than just another in a long list because the work that we do is hugely important.
We are in the business of making people's lives better. If you've been to our website or heard about what we do you may be thinking that I'm talking about those people entrenched in poverty that we help with our programs in Latin America and Africa. We do help those people to improve their lives. But I'm talking more about the people who aren't living in abject poverty, those who support our programs by volunteering their time and resources to our good cause.
At Ascend we believe that everyone can do something to make other people's lives better. Everyday I see examples of people doing just that. In our office right now we have more than 10 students from universities who donate their time to help make a difference. They work an average of 15 hours per week. That's amazing to me; none of these students are experts in development and all of them have other important things going on in their lives but they find time to serve other people. That is inspiring to me.
On the whole, we're average people who have jobs, hobbies, books to read and things we're working on and who also care about dedicating our skills and efforts to making a difference. This blog is our attempt to inspire other (extra)ordinary people to do the same.
There are a few things you should know about this blog before you add us to your RSS feed (which we hope you will do)

It's Personal: We're not going to talk in vague-ities (just made that word up) and infinitives. We're going to talk about our lives, how we think about volunteering and we fit it into our busy schedules (that means sometimes you may hear about how tired we are and how much we hate going to the dentist--first root canal ever is in my plans in the next few weeks and I'm sure you'll hear about that).
I'll start by introducing myself. I'm Sallee. I work here at Ascend and I have for more than 5 years. I manage the army of interns and volunteers that work here. I do a few other things around the office as well. I'm a reader, a baker and a pretend runner/fitness fanatic

It's Collaborative: I figure that you don't wan tot hear from me all the time (even though we've already established that I'm smart and funny) so you're going to hear from our interns and volunteers as well. They'll tell you about themselves and their experiences. I'll be here managing the whole thing and hopefully wind some kind of narrative and meaning through the process (I'm shooting for a cross between the narrator from Our Town and Garrison Keillor--ambitious; I know.)

It's Not All About Ascend: We are a great organization and we do good things. But there are lots of organizations who do good things out there and we would love to be friends with them. There is no shortage of people who need help. We want this blog to be about ways and ideas of using your specific talents to help other people. There will be some propaganda (I'm just trying to be honest) but please feel free to comment. Tell us about what you're doing and the organizations you admire. We'll do the same.

Now feels like the right time to say, "welcome" and maybe steal a line from Law and Order and say, "These are our stories." Just, with a little less crime and bloodshed though. We hope.