VOLUNTEER GROUPS

Baylor University Medical Center Volunteers. 820-2441. Volunteers can work with patients or in other areas of the hospital- Must be fourteen or older.

B’nai B’rith Youth Organization. 363-4654. Jewish youth group for high school students. Volunteers provide service for fellow Jews and people in the community and participate in athletic and social functions.

Business Volunteer Council 744-1194. Refers and recruits volunteers for 650 nonprofit organizations in Dallas County. Most placement can be done by phone.

Chance Center. 631-8200. Trains and supervises volunteers who teach families with child-abuse problems proper parenting skills and correct ways to take care of children on a weekly basis.

Community Council of Dallas. 741-5851. Offers a 24-hour information and referral telephone line, 747-3711, as well as an aging information line, 741-5244. Can handle a variety of problems and questions including health, human services, recreation, and welfare.

Council of Negro Women. 946-9448. Community-based organization that works with 27 different affiliated agencies, helping people to help themselves.

Dallas Council Hispanic Service Organization. 638-2588. A planning and coordinating agency that assists other nonprofit organizations to assist Hispanics. Provides training on how to reach out to the Hispanic community.

Dallas Hospice. 823-2891. Specializes in care for [he terminally ill. Teams of registered nurses, homemakers, social workers, chaplains, and volunteers work with the family and the doctor to ensure the patient’s comfort. Medicare covers hospice 100 percent.

Dallas Zoo Docents. 946-6824. Provides school programs that show and (each children how animals, such as roosters, opossums, South American armadillos, tenrecs, boa constrictors, com snakes, and skinks, 6l into society. Schoolchildren may also visit the park. Ages 6-11 $1.25; 13 and up $2.

Public Library Literacy Volunteers. 670-7836. One-on-one tutoring to adults. 16 and older, who read at the 5th grade level or below. Volunteer training begins every third Saturday of the month.

Save the Children Federation Dallas Field Office. 824-8800. Private, nonprofit community development organization that trains women to become registered, day-home providers. Also works with other agencies in Dallas to create programs to benefit children and families.

Senior Citizens of Greater Dallas. 823-5700. Places citizens 60 and older in volunteer positions for nonprofit organizations in Dallas County.

Volunteer Center of Dallas. 744-1194. The center recruits and refers volunteers for about 600 civic, cultural, and human-needs organizations. It lists about 3,300 volunteer jobs.

Wild Orphans of Dallas. 691-0048. Takes in injured and orphaned native Texas mammals (excluding birds) and hand-raises them until they can be released back to the wild. The Phoenix Society will handle birds. 265-3140.

Women’s Auxiliary to the Children’s Medical Center. 739-1950. Coordinates hospital volunteers; services include fundraising and running the gift shop at the hospital.

THE COMBINATION PLATE



We know Dallasites want to have it all, and perhaps the Tex-Mex combination plate is one small way that wish can cone true. Maybe we Dallasites are too conservative to go all out and the combination plate is a way of covering all the options. Or maybe we’re afraid of commitment (a lot of single people would agree with that) and the combination plate allows us to avoid making a major decision: tamales or enchiladas? If this is true, like all cop-outs, it’s doomed to fail. You don’t get it all on a combination plate, and enery decision for something is a decision against some-thing: no combination plate is perfect. If it cones with a taco, you don’t get a chalupa; if it includes a cheese ranchera, it leaves out the one with sour cream and chicken, local Irtish from Bob Wade to Lynn Armstrong and Pan Nelson have been moved to immortalize the ideal platter of en chiladas, tacos, guacamole, rice, and beans, but the truth is, the perfect combination plate is as elusive as Die Grail. The search can be discomraging. Dallasites are plucky, though. They keep trying.