Just as John F. Kennedy challenged our nation: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country,” Barack Obama now invites all Americans to step up to the plate and volunteer their services, in time of economic hardship.

That plea is nowhere more relevant than in Rhode Island, which joins Michigan, Nevada, California and Oregon as states with highest unemployment. Because state budgets have been ravaged (with services curtailed), hope is afloat that volunteers will help fill the void. What’s the silver lining? Folks with imagination can flex their creative muscles, design their own way of contributing, and enter public service.

How do I know? I volunteer at the prison. I call my program “Word Warriors: Empowering Women Through Effective Writing.” I designed the program, wrote the stories I use (based on my own experiences overcoming adversity), and I recently completed my first 10-week session. My program is a work in progress and I intend to expand it as I continue.

How did I get started in this? I love teaching and discovered (since my retirement 10 years ago) that no other career provided me the joy that teaching gave me. With that in mind, I began to consider where I might volunteer-teach. I had initial experience teaching basic skills to women prisoners in North Carolina three years ago (again, as a volunteer). This time I determined to create a program in Rhode Island..

I began asking around about who could give me the okay for my prison program. I literally knocked on the door of the programs director, pitched my idea to him, and submitted sample lesson plans, detailing the scope of my proposal. The result is that I teach 19 women how to write, using stories that share a theme of overcoming adversity. My topics include: abuse (familial/domestic), divorce, single parenting, addiction, health crises, poor choices and/or bad relationships. All of the topics reflect hope and many (despite the tenor) exude humor, if sometimes of the gallows variety. In my three-decade career, I discovered teaching is more effective with a healthy dollop of humor.

In the beginning, it didn’t look promising. The physical challenges of the system threw me: I came in, presented my driver’s license for identification at the front desk (an officer monitors from behind a bullet-proof window), and awaited clearance. I was then issued a pass. No one cheerily welcomed me, for the mood at the entry port is dead serious. And no one ever enjoined me to “Have a good day!”

From that point, cradling a mound of my materials, I approached the security device that often disqualified me for non-compliance (on my first visit, I learned underwire bras are disallowed). Then. too, buckles of any order and even the prison-issued ID sent the sensor singing. One particularly funny scene saw me, hopping about on one foot as I removed my boots one at a time (they had buckles). No chair was provided for this 64-year-old. On future occasions, I wore simple flats and stripped off my watch and ID before passing through the security device.

Another hurdle was: early on, my population kept shifting as “the word” among inmates spread, and each session produced a new roster of women, meaning I lacked the momentum a teacher achieves when regularity reigns. Some days I’d come home, saying: “Why am I doing this?” But I kept at it, and slowly our class of stalwarts evolved, the 19 women who elected to stay the course.

What was my greatest unexpected reward? My women’s interaction with me. Whereas in the beginning, they eyed me cautiously, we began a respectful relationship. Each week, after the wing officer called: “Word Warriors, report to class,” they’d come in, greeting me with “Hi, Colleen! How was your week?” They were genuinely happy to see me, and tracked my arrival from their perch on the open-air porches (calling out is forbidden).

We laughed often and enjoyed the occasions of wit, and I picked up prison jargon along the way: When I wondered if one woman’s reference to sha-na-na’s on an essay was the 1970s music group, they exploded in mirth, explaining sha-na-na’s (pronounced sha-nay-nay’s) are the fabric slip-on “shoes” they wear. These women, for the most part, are smart and articulate: They kept up with my rat-a-tat presentation as I sought to compact diverse topics into each week’s two-hour session.

I love my volunteer “job,” for it surpassed all expectations. But, I am merely one; there are thousands of us volunteers, in Rhode Island, trying to make a difference. Hopefully, our army will continue to grow. The field is open, defined ultimately by those who recognize a need and determine to fill it.

All one needs do is step up to the plate and sign on. The rewards are truly amazing.

Colleen Kelly Mellor ( ckmellor@cox.net ), a retired public-school teacher, is a freelance writer and volunteers at women’s prisons in North Carolina and Rhode Island.