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Rick Goldman, CASA Volunteer Many of us remember the movie “Pay It Forward” with Haley Joel Osment and Helen Hunt. The movie was about a young boy who develops a “pay it forward” concept for a school philanthropic project. The idea is for people to return favors or “pay it forward” when some good deed was done for them. Of course, this had a ripple effect on the town and everyone started doing good deeds for others when they received random acts of kindness. CASA volunteer Rick Goldman was reminded of this movie when he spoke about what compelled him to get involved with a service organization like CASA. Rick explained, “I wanted to pay back my good fortune in life by doing something I felt would help other people achieve a better life.” When Rick was shopping at Whole Foods Market® one day, he came across a CASA informational table. He knew then that he had found his opportunity to “pay it forward.” In April of 2004, Rick became a CASA volunteer and began advocating for a teen who had been in the system since he was four-years-old. Since then, this young man has lived in more than 10 institutions and foster homes. Rick felt that this teen could definitely use a CASA in his life to support him through some of the problems and challenges he was experiencing in foster care. Recently, after Rick’s CASA teen had run away from his foster home, Rick was instrumental in helping him get in touch with his case worker. They worked together to find him an alternative placement. The young teen has aspirations of moving to an independent-living environment, so Rick is working closely with him to finish high school so that this goal can be achieved. Despite some of the unique challenges, Rick knows his volunteer role is a process. It is built on keeping commitments and providing much needed consistency in a child’s life. Rick personally sees his CASA teen at least once a month to spend time together, catch up or just talk about his young man’s love of sports, especially football and gymnastics. In talking about sports, Rick says that he takes the opportunity to instill some goals and wisdom related to sports in everyday life. Rick shared with the teen that “if you want to exceed in life or sports, you must work hard for improvement and be a good team player.” For Rick, becoming a CASA has proven to be a good balance in his personal life as he recognizes the need for male volunteers like himself to get involved. “I believe that many young males would benefit from having another male to serve as a role model as well as an advocate in their life,” he explained. Currently, CASA has 129 active volunteers with only 22, or 17.1 percent of them being men. Generally, the children who are in foster care are one-half girls and one-half boys, so the need for more male CASA volunteers is great. Rick also adds that he still has plenty of time to perform other volunteer work, travel and do all the things he enjoys while helping a child in need. “I just want to make life a little more enjoyable for the child in my current case and for the children I will advocate for in the future,” said Rick. |
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