"This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in." - Theodore Roosevelt As Secretary of the Debate Club of my high school, I was assigned the job of picking a community service project for the Club to participate in. Our school was having a “service day” and different classes and clubs were picking various projects around the community to do on this day. Some groups were going to play with kids at Safe Place, while others were serving food at the Soup Kitchen, and still others were volunteering to pick up trash around neighborhoods. I saw all of these projects as needs that our community had, but I had the desire to help an individual, or even a family; someone who needed something done, but could not do it themselves. I wanted to make a more personal impact; I wanted someone to feel like we had dedicated our day just to them. That was why I ultimately decided to get involved in a Christmas in Action project. I contacted the organization and we were assigned a house to repaint. I honestly did not think that ...
From the various things I did to fulfill my required service hours, the most meaningful service I completed was through a program called Buddy Baseball. The Rockford park district in the summer organizes this program for the disabled children in the area so that they are able to participate in a sport. The park district runs this program to try and help the disabled children feel as though they have a more typical childhood. The kids have the opportunity to experience being on a team and playing with their friends without the aid of their parents, which the kids seldom get to experience. Because of this, I believe that this service best exemplifies the theme of the option for the poor and vulnerable.
Over the years I have been very involved in my community and school. Being a part of something helps to define who you are as a person and the principles and values you hold as important. A personal experience that helps to show my talents and skills can be illustrated by my trip to Italy last April with the MHS Language Department.
My favorite service project was my silver award for girl scouts. Before Jamie Lince, Faith Brown, and I did the silver award the hoophouse by the elementary school was very rundown. There were holes in the plastic, weeds in the beds, and the wood chips in the aisles were worn down. The hoophouse couldn’t be used. We wanted to fix that problem. First we applied for grants. I never knew how many steps or how much time this would take. It really taught me how to handle deadlines so things get turned in on time. It also taught me that there are people that want to support you, and you just need to find them. The two grants that we received were a Lowes grant for fifteen-hundred dollars and a seed grant from Van Atta’s. The second step was to get people to help weed out the beds so we could plant the seeds we got from the grant. This took a few hours and a lot of people from the community showed up to help. The Lowes grant was used for the plastic that goes on the outside of the hoophouse and new wood chips for the aisles in the hoophouse. We had to have the help of Mr. Montry who makes hoop house...
Once in a while helping those in need can be very beneficial. People are not the only ones that need to survive. Plants need to survive because without them we would not be able to breath. At school I had to think of a place to do some charity work. Since everyone was going to do theirs based off of people, I along with two of my friends decided to work at a place called Shade Tree. Shade Tree is an organization which helps our environment and helps keep the environment clean and well organized. Shade Tree helped me learn a lot and it was a very great hands on experience.
During my 2 years as a member of The National Honor Society, I have done multiple community services. The best part of doing services is watching others smile because of what I have done to help them better their lives. When I was part of Earth Day at my school, I traveled to the historical paterson great falls. To interact with children on how to reuse our resources to help our community become cleaner. The best part of doing this is that a week after our service, the children were beginning to take small steps by picking up trash off the parks.
I am dedicated to helping out our community and school, because it warms my heart and soul. Seneca said in about 40 to 60 A.D. that you should “be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favors you have received.” In other words you should not boast about the numerous projects you have accomplished and how much physical work you executed, but rather pride yourself on how you helped people in community and school, and how you have affected their lives with positive means. I feel life is joyous and it should be the feeling everyone illustrates, and this is exactly what keeps me functioning in the stressful world today. I find comfort in helping others to make their lives a little more like heaven and this comfort motivates me to perform copious service projects to the best of my capability whenever I find the time. Time is fair to the rich, the poor, and to every race, because time is equal and gives everyone 24 hours daily to accomplish their required tasks. Because time is so valuable and I am occupied by difficult advanced placement and honor classes and juggle school, clubs, sports, and friends, I joined Key Club, a high school division of the adult service club, Kiwanis. Key Club opened new doors to make every extra minute count towards helping others.
I have participated in several volunteer opportunities as a Girl Scout, singing Christmas carols at a local hospital, picking up trash along the beach, working at a homeless shelter, leading events for younger Girl Scouts and much more. These opportunities have influenced me to become aware of the struggles within my
I have always considered myself a very promising student. I have worked extremely hard and received high grades. I have a close knit group of friends and my teachers and I have mutual respect for each other .Although I would consider myself at this present stage ‘fulfilled’ something was missing. I realized it wasn’t a materialistic aspect of my life. Through a tragic incident I finally discovered what fit perfectly in that vacancy. The consecutive hospitalizations of my grandparents evoked great pain and sorrow. However, out of the scorching intensity of this tragedy I was warmed and comforted by realizing what I was devoid of: community service.
My responsibilities during my community service were as followed: I go to the synagogue Montreal Torah Center down my street. They have a group for teens my age called Cteens. It is a group where lots of teens my age come and do something different each time to help the community. This year my friend Anabelle and I got invited to participate. Considering it is a Jewish synagogue, we sometimes base what we do on the holidays. To me, community service is simply helping out your community or city. I always thought that ‘hey, what will one basket make a difference to a child’ but one time I actually went to deliver the basket to whom I made it for. The smile on the child’s face showed me that one basket does actually make a difference and...
And most recently I decided to donate twelve inches of my hair to Locks of Love, an organization that makes and donates wigs to children who are struggling with cancer. I no longer see volunteering as a way to sign off hours of service but instead something impactful. The reason why I volunteer and will continue to volunteer is because I know that I could make a difference by reaching out and touching the lives of others in a positive way. After seeing how grateful these women were for the basic necessities us more privileged people take for granted, I came to an understanding that in order to better our community we must all help one another. Through this experience I was able to attain satisfaction by helping others who couldn't fully help themselves and I learned to give back to those who need it the
When a person contributes to their community, they gain more than a just a sense of accomplishment. The experience a person gets in return from helping the community is invaluable. It is a mutually beneficial experience. A person who helps those in need gains knowledge and experience that can help them in future endeavors.
In order to fulfill the 12 hours of community service requirement for Nutrition course 139 I applied with five organizations on the approved list. The organization that replied me the fastest was Open Heart Kitchen, they mostly operate in Pleasanton and Livermore areas. Their application and signing up for shift process gives a feeling that this organization is massive, and many individuals really care about the less fortunate. From observation and conversations with the site supervisor, I believe this organization relies on individual donations, small business donations and large corporate donations such as Safeway and Walmart. This organization also relies on volunteers to work every day, they get workers from students fulfilling their hours and resume, individuals fulfilling court orders, and those that just want to help the less fortunate.
Though, the concept of community service is not very new its importance has developed in the past few years. There are thousands of organizations all over the world that engage and hold millions of young people all through the world. People of all age groups, with a maximum number of youth are involved in the process of community service. Community-based organizations include; social service organizations, non-profit providers and associations that engage both young people as well adults as volunteers. The process is beneficial both for the individuals as well as the society. Without community service people would not know the meaning of charity and giving back. Community service can be defined as a service that is performed for the benefit of the public. Community service is not a responsibly or an obligation; it is a commitment. A person must want to do it with good intentions and not because they are being forced to do so. Basically, community service is a way for a person to give back to a community in which they live.
I also had the privilege of helping with the Meals on Wheels non profit organization. My grandfather used to be a Meals on Wheels recipient and he would share with me how he enjoyed looking forward to their company and a hot meal daily. I volunteered because I wanted to give back and help someone else’s loved one in the same way. It was very rewarding delivering hot meals to people who didn’t have the means of getting one as well as being there for them to talk to. Overall, it was a very humbling experience, it made me realize just how blessed I am and how much I take for granted daily.
These experiences have afforded me opportunities to demonstrate my gifts and talents that had previously gone undiscovered. Through different community service opportunities, I either learned something new about myself or I was reassured something. These qualities include that I am creative, reliable, open-minded, passionate, and an effective team player. Community service changed my life by developing my character through enhancing my transferable skills, which allowed me to see the world differently. Everyone, from all walks of life, needs to in some way, shape, or form give back to the community because it will not only benefit the less fortunate but it will benefit the volunteers as well. Additionally, I learned about the wide variety of resources available to help the community. There are so many resources out there that people are ignorant to like certain shelters and food banks. Ultimately, community service taught me the greatest gift I could ever receive, how to be