My Senior Service Journey: The Importance Of Service

Wow, we have come to the end. Starting out the year, when people asked me what I was doing, I would answer, some variation of “my school requires that every Wednesday the seniors go out across the city to do service”. However, as the year progressed, that answer felt harder to say. The statement was still true, but the way it sounded was wrong. It was no longer something I did because my school made me. It became something I realized I loved doing anyway, and the school gave me a “push”, as to say. Now, I come to serve because I know my faith is rooted in service; because I know the value of helping others; and I know that the school is not forcing service onto me by making it a class, but providing me with an opportunity to exercise being
For one, my understanding of the place of service in my life has changed. Before, I saw service as something I do now, something that has a start and end. What I have grown to realize is the importance of service to me. I will never cease to serve. As I enter into the next stage of my life, I know I want to continue to serve, continue to bring change to the communities around me. Another way I have changed is in the way I work with other people. I often get into this mindset that I do not need help, that I can only provide help and not receive it. Working at Cass has helped change that. I grew to value the importance of my friends helping me with a task. I like the company of the other volunteers that help teach me things. Nikki has been very kind to me and the rest of the U of D crew. Matt has taught me much about food preparation. All of these people played a part in making me a better acceptor of help. Their kindness and willingness to help me has made me realize people want to help if I just let
He calls us to do as he did. Everytime I go to Senior Service, I feel a warmth inside of me because I am literally doing what God commanded all of us to do. There many small acts in my day which also symbolize what God wants me to do, but Senior Service is different. It is almost like when I walk in, I see a big sign that says “Welcome to doing what God said to do”! And everything I do at Cass reflects my connection with God. Service became not about pleasing myself - doing it because it made me feel good - but about fulfilling God’s call to serve. In doing that, I then get that good feeling. Now when asked why I serve, the answer is not “because I want to” or “because it makes me feel good” but rather “because it is what God has called me to do”. What I like about Cass Community is the comfortability level I have reached with the people I work with. We can joke with each other, give advice, and help one another easily. I like how they were not strict about our arrival time nor our attire. They trusted us with tasks, so we felt in a way, more independent. They were interested in our lives and who we were. I like the fact that every week we get to work with food, something I myself enjoy. I work with food for my job at the zoo, and doing it at Cass feels very